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THE SURVIVAL OF MAN 

A Study in Unrecognized 
Human Faculty 



WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



Modern Views of Electricity. 

Life and Matter. 

Pioneers of Science (Illustrated). 

School Teaching and School Reform. 

Easy Mathematics, Arithmetic, etc. 

Elementary Mechanics. 

Signalling without Wires. 

Modern Views on Matter. 

The Substance of Faith. 

Elections. 

The Ether of Space. 

Science and Immortality. 



THE SURVIVAL OF MAN 

A Study in Unrecognized 
Human Faculty 



BY 



SIR OLIVER LODGE, F.R.S. 




NEW YORK 
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1909 



*v? 






0°\ 



Copyright, 1909, by 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

New York 

All Rights Reserved 
Published November, 1909 



©CU252761 






DEDICATED TO THE FOUNDERS OF THE 
SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH: 
THE TRUEST AND MOST PATIENT WORK- 
ERS IN AN UNPOPULAR REGION OF 
SCIENCE THAT I HAVE EVER KNOWN 



PREFACE 

THE author's conviction of man's survival of bodily 
death — a conviction based on a large range of 
natural facts — is well known; and in this volume 
some idea can be gained as to the most direct and immediate 
kind of foundation on which in the future he considers that 
this belief w T ill in due course be scientifically established. 

The author gives an account of many of his investiga- 
tions into matters connected with psychical research during 
the last quarter of a century, with an abridgement of con- 
temporary records. His inquiry, following the lines of the 
Society for Psychical Research, began with experimental 
telepathy; but the largest section of the book treats of 
automatic writing, trance speech, and other instances of 
temporary lucidity,- — for in this department of the subject 
he considers that the most direct evidence for continued 
personal existence and posthumous activity will most likely 
be found. 

An account of his experiences in connection with the con- 
troverted and often discredited " physical phenomena " 
associated with exceptional mental states, and a discussion of 
the right scientific and philosophic attitude to these puzzling 
and at first sight incredible facts — which are pressing for 
inclusion in our scheme of Nature, — are reserved for an- 
other volume. 



" It is mere dogmatism to assert that we do not survive death, and mere 
prejudice or inertia to assert that it is impossible to discover whether we 
do or no. We in the West have hardly even begun to inquire into the 
matter; and scientific method and critical faculty were never devoted to 
it, so far as I am aware, previous to the foundation, some quarter of a 
century ago, of the Society for Psychical Research. . . . 

"Alleged facts suggesting prima facie the survival of death . . . 
are now at last being systematically and deliberately explored by men 
and women of intelligence and good faith bent on ascertaining the truth." 

" I am asking you to take seriously a branch of scientific inquiry which 
may have results more important than any other that is being pursued in 
our time." G. Lowes Dickinson, 

Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard 1908. 

And assuredly the religious implications of all these phenomena are 
worthy of any man's most serious thought. Those who most feel the 
importance of the ethical superstructure are at the same time most plainly 
bound to treat the establishment of the facts at the foundation as no mere 
personal search for a faith, to be dropped when private conviction has 
been attained, but as a serious, a continuous, public duty. And the more 
convinced they are that their faith is sound, the more ready should they 
be to face distrust and aversion, — to lay their account for a long strug- 
gle with the vis inertia of the human spirit. 

F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality, ii. 225. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

SECTION I 
AIMS AND OBJECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

CHAP PAGE. 

I. The Origin of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search i 

II. Practical Work of the Society n 

SECTION II 

EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY OR THOUGHT 
TRANSFERENCE 

III. Some Early Experiments in Thought-Trans- 

ference 39 

IV. Further Experiments in Telepathy . . .59 
V. Spontaneous Cases of Thought-Transference 74 

VI. Applied Telepathy 80 

SECTION III 

SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY AND CLAIRVOYANCE 

VII. Apparitions considered in the light of Te- 
lepathy 99 

VIII. Telepathy from an Immaterial Region . .110 

IX. Examples of Apparent Clairvoyance . . .128 

X. Prevision 155 



CONTENTS 
SECTION IV 

AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

XI. Automatic Writing and Trance Speech . .169 

XII. Personal Identity 182 

XIII. Beginning of the Case of Mrs. Piper . . .190 

XIV. Professor William James's Early Testimony 198 
XV. The Author's First Report on Mrs. Piper . 204 

XVI. Extracts from Piper Sittings 214 

XVII. Discussion of Piper Sittings ....*. 240 

XVIII. Summary of Dr. Hodgson's Views .... 246 

XIX. Recent Piper Sittings. General Information 259 

XX. The Isaac Thompson Control 269 

XXI. General Remarks on the Piper Sittings . .281 

XXII. The Myers Control 288 

XXIII. The Myers and Hodgson Controls in Recent 

Piper Sittings 313 

XXIV. Brief Summary of other Experiences and Com- 

ment THEREUPON 321 

XXV. Introduction to the Study of Cross-Corre- 
spondence . . 329 

XXVI. Tentative Conclusion 339 



XXVII. In Memory of Myers 



344 



SECTION I 



AIMS AND OBJECTS OF PSY- 
CHICAL RESEARCH 



THE SURVIVAL OF MAN 



CHAPTER I 

THE ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL 

RESEARCH 

PUZZLING and weird occurrences have been vouched 
for among all nations and in every age. It is 
possible to relegate a good many asserted occurrences 
to the domain of superstition, but it is not possible thus 
to eliminate all. Nor is it likely that in the present stage 
of natural knowledge we are acquainted with all the 
workings of the human spirit and have reduced them to such 
simplicity that everything capable of happening in the mental 
and psychical region is of a nature readily and familiarly to 
be understood by all. Yet there are many who seem prac- 
tically to believe in this improbability; for although they 
are constrained from time to time to accept novel and sur- 
prising discoveries in biology, in chemistry, and in physical 
science generally, they seem tacitly to assume that these are 
the only parts of the universe in which fundamental dis- 
covery is possible, all the rest being too well known. 

It is a simple faith, and does credit to the capacity for 
belief of those who hold it — belief unfounded upon knowl- 
edge, and tenable only in the teeth of a great mass of evi- 
dence to the contrary. 

It is not easy to unsettle minds thus fortified against the 
intrusion of unwelcome facts; and their strong faith is 

I 



2 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

probably a salutary safeguard against that unbalanced and 
comparatively dangerous condition called " bpen-minded- 
ness," which is ready to learn and investigate anything not 
manifestly self-contradictory and absurd. Without people 
of the solid, assured, self-satisfied order, the practical work 
of the world would not so efficiently be done. 

But, whatever may be thought of the subject by the 
majority of people at present, this book is intended to indi- 
cate the possibility that discoveries of the very first magni- 
tude can still be made — are indeed in process of being made 
— by strictly scientific methods, in the region of psychology : 
discoveries quite comparable in importance with those which 
have been made during the last century in physics and biol- 
ogy, but discoveries whose opportunties for practical ap- 
plication and usefulness may similarly have to remain for 
some time in the hands of experts, since perhaps they can- 
not be miscellaneously absorbed or even apprehended by 
the multitude without danger. 

It has been partly the necessity for caution — the dread 
of encouraging mere stupid superstition — that has in- 
stinctively delayed advance in these branches of inquiry, 
until the progress of education gave a reasonable chance of 
a sane and balanced and critical reception by a fairly con- 
siderable minority. 

But, within the last half century, assertions concerning 
psychological supernormalities have not only excited gen- 
eral attention, but have rather notably roused the interest 
of careful and responsible students, both in the domain of 
science and in that of letters. 

Twenty-eight years ago, in fact, a special society with 
distinguished membership was enrolled in London, with the 
object of inquiring into the truth of many of these asser- 
tions. It was started by a few men of letters and of science 



ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY 3 

who for some years had been acquainted with a number of 
strange apparent facts — facts so strange and unusual, and 
yet so widely believed in among a special coterie of ordi- 
narily sane and sensible people, that it seemed to these 
pioneers highly desirable either to incorporate them properly 
into the province of ordered knowledge, or else to extrude 
them definitely as based upon nothing but credulity, im- 
posture, and deceit. 

The attempt was to be made in a serious and responsible 
spirit, a spirit of genuine "scepticism," — that is to say, of 
critical examination and inquiry, not of dogmatic denial and 
assertion. No phenomenon was to be unhesitatingly re- 
jected because at first sight incredible. No phenomenon 
was to be accepted which could not make its position good 
by crucial and repeated and convincing tests. Every class 
of asserted fact was to have the benefit of inquiry, none 
was to be given the benefit of any doubt. So long as doubt 
was possible, the phenomenon was to be kept at arm's 
length: to be criticised as possible, not to be embraced as 
true. 

It is often cursorily imagined that an adequate supply of 
the critical and cautious spirit necessary in this investiga- 
tion is a monopoly of professed men of science. It is not 
so. Trained students of literature — not to mention ex- 
perts in philosophy — have shown themselves as careful, as 
exact, as critical, and as cautious, as any professed student 
of science. They have even displayed an excess of caution. 
They have acted as a curb and a restraint upon the more 
technically scientific workers, who — presumably because 
their constant business is to deal at first hand with new 
phenomena of one kind or another — have been willing to 
accept a fresh variety of them upon evidence not much 
stronger than that to which they were already well accus- 



4 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

tomed. Whereas some of the men and women of letters 
associated with the society have been invariably extremely 
cautious, less ready to be led by obtrusive and plausible ap- 
pearances, more suspicious of possibilities and even impos- 
sibilities of fraud, actually more inventive sometimes of 
other and quasi-normal methods of explaining inexplicable 
facts. I name no names, but from a student of science this 
testimony is due: and it is largely to the sceptical and ex- 
tremely cautious wisdom of some representatives of letters 
and philosophy, as well as to their energy and enthusiasm 
for knowledge, that the present moderately respectable 
position of the subject in the estimation of educated people 
is due. 

The first President was Professor Henry Sidgwick, and 
in his early presidential addresses the following sentences 
occur : — 

It is a scandal that a dispute as to the reality of these 
phenomena should still be going on, that so many competent 
witnesses should have declared their belief in them, that so 
many others should be profoundly interested in having the 
question determined, and yet that the educated world, as a 
body, should still be simply in the attitude of incredulity. 

Now the primary aim of our Society, the thing which we 
all unite to promote, whether as believers or non-believers, 
is to make a sustained and systematic attempt to remove this 
scandal in one way or another. 

If any one asks me what I mean by, or how I define, 
sufficient scientific proof of thought-reading, clairvoyance, or 
the phenomena called Spiritualistic, I should ask to be al- 
lowed to evade the difficulties of determining in the abstract 
what constitutes adequate evidence. What I mean by 
sufficient evidence is evidence that will convince the scientific 
world, and for that we obviously require a good deal more 
than we have so far obtained. I do not mean that some 
effect in this direction has not been produced: if that were 



ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY 5 

so we could not hope to do much. I think that something 
has been done; that the advocates of obstinate incredulity 
— I mean the incredulity that waives the whole affair aside 
as undeserving of any attention from rational beings — 
feel their case to be not prima facie so strong now as it was. 

Thirty years ago it was thought that want of scientific 
culture was an adequate explanation of the vulgar belief in 
mesmerism and table-turning. Then, as one man of scien- 
tific repute after another came forward with the results of 
individual investigation, there was a quite ludicrous in- 
genuity exercised in finding reasons for discrediting his 
scientific culture. He was said to be an amateur, not a pro- 
fessional; or a specialist without adequate generality of view 
and training; or a mere discoverer not acquainted with the 
strict methods of experimental research; or he was not a 
Fellow of the Royal Society, or if he was it was by an un- 
fortunate accident. We must not expect any decisive effect 
in the direction at which we primarily aim, on the common 
sense of mankind, from any single piece of evidence, how- 
ever complete it has been made. Scientific incredulity has 
been so long in growing, and has so many and so strong 
roots, that we shall only kill it, if we are able to kill it at all 
as regards any of those questions, by burying it alive under 
a heap of facts. We must keep " pegging away," as 
Lincoln said; we must accumulate fact upon fact, and add 
experiment upon experiment, and, I should say, not wrangle 
too much with incredulous outsiders about the conclusiveness 
of any one, but trust to the mass of evidence for conviction. 
The highest degree of demonstrative force that we can ob- 
tain out of any single record of investigation is, of course, 
limited by the trustworthiness of the investigator. We have 
done all that we can when the critic has nothing left to al- 
lege except that the investigator is in the trick. But when 
he has nothing else left to allege he will allege that. 

We shall, I hope, make a point of bringing no evidence 
before the public until we have got it to this pitch of cogency. 

To many enthusiasts outside and to some of those inside 
the Society — who, through long acquaintance with the 



6 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

phenomena under investigation, were already thoroughly 
convinced of their genuine character — this attitude on the 
part of the founders and leaders of the Society for Psychical 
Research always seemed wrong-headed, and sometimes 
proved irritating to an almost unbearable degree. The 
hostility of the outside world and of orthodox science to the 
investigation, though at times fierce and scornful, and al- 
ways weighty and significant, has been comparatively mild 
— perhaps because fragmentary and intermittent — when 
compared with the bitter and fairly continuous diatribes 
which have issued, and still often issue, from the spiritual- 
istic press against the slow and ponderous and repellent 
attitude of those responsible for the working of the So- 
ciety. 

It has been called a society for the suppression of facts, 
for the wholesale imputation of imposture, for the dis- 
couragement of the sensitive, and for the repudiation of 
every revelation of the kind which was said to be pressing 
itself upon humanity from the regions of light and knowl- 
edge. 

Well, we have had to stand this buffeting, as well as the 
more ponderous blows inflicted by the other side; and it 
was hardly necessary to turn the cheek to the smiter, since 
in an attitude of face-forward progress the buffets were 
sure to come with fair impartiality; greater frequency on 
the one side making up for greater strength on the other. 

Reply to Religious Critics 

There is a persistent class of objector, however, whose 
attacks are made more in sorrow than in anger, and whose 
earnest remonstrances are thus sympathetically parried by 
the founders of the Society : — 



ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY 7 

One word in reference to another objection, which pro- 
ceeds from a different quarter. There are not a few 
religious persons who see no reason to doubt our alleged 
facts, but who regard any experimental investigation of 
them as wrong, because they must be the work either of the 
devil or of familiar spirits, with whom the Bible forbids us 
to have dealings. . . . What we should urge upon our 
religious friends is that their scruples have really no place in 
the present stage of our investigation, when the question 
before us is whether certain phenomena are to be referred 
to the agency of Spirits at all, even as a " working hypothe- 
sis." . . . Many of us, I think, will be amply content 
if we can only bring this first stage of our investigation to 
something like a satisfactory issue; we do not look further 
ahead; and we will leave it for those who may come after to 
deal with any moral problems that may possibly arise when 
this first stage is passed. 

There are persons who believe themselves to have certain 
knowledge on the most important matters on which we are 
seeking evidence, w T ho do not doubt that they have received 
communications from an unseen world of spirits, but who 
think that such communications should be kept as sacred 
mysteries and not exposed to be scrutinised in the mood of 
cold curiosity which they conceive to belong to science. 
Now we do not wish to appear intrusive ; at the same time 
we are anxious not to lose through mere misunderstanding 
any good opportunities for investigation: and I therefore 
wish to assure such persons that we do not approach these 
matters in any light or trivial spirit, but with an ever-present 
sense of the vast importance of the issues involved, and with 
every desire to give reverence wherever reverence is found 
to be due. But we feel bound to begin by taking these ex- 
periences, however important and however obscure, as a 
part of the great aggregate which we call Nature; and we 
must ascertain carefully and systematically their import, 
their laws and causes, before we can rationally take up any 
definite attitude of mind with regard to them. The un- 
known or uncommon is not in itself an object of reverence; 



8 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

there is no sacredness in the mere limitations of our knowl- 
edge. 

This, then, is what we mean by a scientific spirit; that we 
approach the subject without prepossessions, but with a 
single-minded desire to bring within the realm of orderly and 
accepted knowledge what now appears as a chaos of in- 
dividual beliefs. 

It is instructive to look back at the original programme 
issued by the Society, which is now housed at 20 Hanover 
Square; and accordingly I make a few quotations from the 
prelude to its first volume of Proceedings, wherein is con- 
tained a statement of its aims and objects: — 



Programme of the Society 

From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, 
past and present, including observations recently made by 
scientific men of eminence in various countries, there appears 
to be, amidst much illusion and deception, an important 
body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie in- 
explicable on any generally recognised hypothesis, and which, 
if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible 
value. 

The task of examining such residual phenomena has often 
been undertaken by individual effort, but never hitherto by 
a scientific society organized on a sufficiently broad basis. 
As a preliminary step towards this end, a Conference, con- 
vened by Professor Barrett, was held in London, on Jan- 
uary 6th, 1882, and a Society for Psychical Research was 
projected. The Society was definitely constituted on Feb- 
ruary 20th, 1882, and its Council, then appointed, sketched 
out a programme of future work: — 

1. An examination of the nature and extent of any in- 

fluence which may be exerted by one mind upon 
another, apart from any generally recognised mode 
of perception. 

2. The study of hypnotism, and the form of so-called 



ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY 9 

mesmeric trance, with its alleged insensibility to 
pain; clairvoyance and other allied phenomena. 

3. A critical revision of Reichenbach's researches with 

certain organisations called " sensitive," and an 
inquiry whether such organisations possess any 
power of perception beyond a highly exalted sen- 
sibility of the recognised sensory organs. 

4. A careful investigation of any reports, resting on 

strong testimony, regarding apparitions at the 
moment of death, or otherwise, or regarding dis- 
turbances in houses reputed to be haunted. 

5. An inquiry into the various physical phenomena 

commonly called Spiritualistic; with an attempt 
to discover their causes and general laws. 

6. The collection and collation of existing materials 

bearing on the history of these subjects. 

The aim of the Society is to approach these various prob- 
lems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in 
the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which 
has enabled Science to solve so many problems, once not 
less obscure nor less hotly debated. The founders of this 
Society fully recognize the exceptional difficulties which sur- 
round this branch of research; but they nevertheless hope 
that by patient and systematic effort some results of 
permanent value may be attained. 

To prevent misconception, it must be expressly stated 
that Membership of the Society does not imply the accep- 
tance of any particular explanation of the phenomena in- 
vestigated, nor any belief as to the operation, in the physical 
world, of forces other than those recognised by Physical 
Science. 

And to this I may add that all seriously interested 
people are welcome as members, provided they have no 
selfish or commercial ends to serve by seeking to join. 
Their interest, and in a minor degree their subscription, 
tend to promote the object we have in view. Merely su- 
perstitious and emotional people would find themselves out 



io AIMS AND OBJECTS 

of place at our meetings, but otherwise we do not seek to 
be exclusive. It is a kind of work to which any fair- 
minded and honest person can, as opportunity offers, con- 
tribute his or her share. 



CHAPTER II 

PRACTICAL WORK OF THE SOCIETY 

IN the three earliest years of the present century it fell 
to my lot to occupy the Presidential Chair of the 
Society for Psychical Research and to give an Address 
each year. One of those Addresses — the one for 1903 
— dealt with the lines of profitable work which seemed 
at that time to be opening before us; and, since the general 
nature of our investigation is there referred to in a pre- 
liminary manner, it is useful to reproduce it here as an in- 
troduction to the more detailed records which follow. 

Our primary aim is to be a Scientific Society, to conduct 
our researches and to record our results in an accurate and 
scientific manner, so as to set an example of careful work 
in regions where it has been the exception rather than the 
rule, and to be a trustworthy guide to the generation of 
workers who shall follow. 

To be scientific does not mean to be infallible, but 
it means being clear and honest, and as exact as we know 
how to be. In difficult investigations pioneers have always 
made some mistakes, they have no immediate criterion or 
infallible touchstone to distinguish the more true from the 
less true, but if they record their results with anxious care 
and scrupulous honesty and painstaking precision, their mis- 
takes are only less valuable to the next generation than their 
partially true generalisations; and sometimes it turns out, 
after a century or so, that mistakes made by early pioneers 
were no such thorough errors as had been thought, but they 

11 



12 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

had an element of truth in them all the time, as if 
discoverers were endowed with a kind of prophetic insight 
whereby they caught a glimpse of theories and truths which 
it would take several generations of workers to disencumber 
and bring clearly to light. 

Suppose, however, that their errors were real ones, the 
record of their work is just as important to future naviga- 
tors as it is to have the rocks and shoals of a channel 
mapped out and buoyed. It is work which must be done. 
The great ship passing straight to its destination is enabled 
to attain this directness and speed by the combined labours 
of a multitude of workers, some obscure and forgotten, 
some distinguished and remembered, but few of them able 
to realise its stately passage. So it is also with every great 
erection,— much of the work is indirect and hidden; — the 
Forth Bridge stands upon piers sunk below the water-mark 
by the painful and long continued labours of Italian work- 
men in " caissons " full of compressed and heated air. 

The study of specifically Natural knowledge was fostered 
and promoted by the recognition in the reign of Charles 
II. of a body of enthusiasts who, during the disturbed but 
hopeful era of the Commonwealth, had met together to 
discuss problems of scientific interest; and to-day the Royal 
Society is among the dignified institutions of our land, tak- 
ing all branches of Natural Philosophy and Natural History 
— the Physical Sciences and the Biological Sciences — 
under its wing. 

Us it does not recognise; but then neither does it 
recognise Mental and Moral Philosophy, or Ethics, or 
Psychology, or History, or any part of a great region of 
knowledge which has hitherto been regarded as outside the 
pale of the Natural Sciences. 

It is for us to introduce our subjects within that pale, if 



PRACTICAL WORK 13 

it turns out that there they properly belong; and if not, it is 
for us to do pioneer work and take our place by the side of 
that group of Societies whose object is the recognition and 
promotion of work in the mental, the psychological, the 
philosophical direction, until the day for unification shall 
arrive. 

Half knowledge sees divisions and emphasises barriers, 
delights in classification into genera and species, affixes 
labels, and studies things in groups. And all this work is 
of the utmost practical value and is essentially necessary. 
That the day will come when barriers shall be broken down, 
when species shall be found to shade off into one another, 
when continuity and not classification shall be the dominant 
feature, may be anticipated by all; but we have no power of 
hastening the day except by taking our place in the work- 
shop and doing our assigned quota; still less do we gain 
any advantage by pretending that the day of unification has 
arrived while as yet its dawn is still in the future. 

Popular Mistrust of Science, and its Remedy 

Our primary aim is to be a scientific Society, doing 
pioneering and foundation work in a new and not yet in- 
corporated plot on which future generations may build, and 
making as few mistakes as we can reasonably contrive by 
the exercise of great care. We are not a literary society, 
though we have had men of letters among our guides and 
leaders; and we are not a religious society, though some of 
the members take an interest in our subject because it 
seems to them to have a bearing on their religious convic- 
tions or hopes. I will say a few words on both these 
points. 

First, our relations to literature: 



i 4 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

The name of Francis Bacon is a household word in the 
history of English scientific ideas. I do not mean in the 
recent, and as it seems to me comic, aspect, that he wrote 
everything that was written in the Elizabethan era (a 
matter to which I wish to make no reference one way or the 
other, for it is completely off my path). But, before that 
hare was started, his name was weighty and familiar in 
the history of English scientific ideas; and it is instructive 
to ask why. Was he a man of Science? No. Did he 
make discoveries ? No. Do scientific men trace back 
their ancestry to him? No. To Isaac Newton they trace 
it back, to Gilbert, to Roger Bacon, speaking for those in 
England; but of Francis Bacon they know next to nothing. 
Outside England all the world traces its scientific ancestry 
to Newton, to Descartes, to Galileo, to Kepler; but of 
Francis Bacon scientific men outside England have scarcely 
heard, save as a man of letters. Yet the progress of science 
owes much to him. All unconsciously scientific men owe 
to him a great debt. Why? 

Because he perceived afar off the oncoming of the 
scientific wave, and because he was able, in language to 
which men would listen, to herald and welcome its advance. 

Scientifically he was an amateur; but he was an enthusiast 
who with splendid eloquence, with the fire of genius, and 
with great forensic skill, was able to impress his generation, 
and not his own generation alone, with some idea of the 
dignity and true place of science, and to make it possible 
for the early pioneers of the Royal Society to pursue their 
labours unimpeded by persecution and to gain some sort of 
recognition even from general and aristocratic Society. 

For remember that the term "science" was not always 
respectable. To early ears it sounded almost as the term 
witchcraft or magic sounds, it was a thing from which to 



PRACTICAL WORK 15 

warn young people; it led to atheism and to many other 
abominations. It was an unholy prying into the secrets of 
Nature which were meant to be hid from our eyes; it was a 
thing against which the Church resolutely set its face, a thing 
for which it was ready if need were to torture or to burn those 
unlucky men of scientific genius who were born before their 
time. I mean no one Church in particular: I mean the 
religious world generally. Science was a thing allied to 
heresy, a thing to hold aloof from, to shudder at, and to 
attribute to the devil. All which treatment that great and 
eminent pioneer, Roger Bacon, experienced at the Uni- 
versity of Oxford; because the time was not yet ripe. 

How came it that a little later, in the days of the Stuarts, 
the atmosphere was so different from that prevalent in the 
days of the Plantagenets? Doubtless the age of Elizabeth, 
the patriotism aroused by the Armada and by the great 
discoveries in geography, had had their vivifying effect; and 
the same sort of originality of thought which did not scruple 
to arraign a king for high treason likewise ventured to set 
orthodoxy at defiance, and to experiment upon and investi- 
gate openly all manner of natural facts. But, in partial 
contradicition to the expressed opinion of some men of 
science, I am disposed to agree to a considerable extent with 
the popular British view that the result was largely due to 
the influence of the writings of Francis Bacon. He had 
accustomed scholars and literary men to the possibilities and 
prerogatives of scientific inquiry, he had emphasised the 
importance and the dignity of experiment, and it is to his 
writings that the rapid spread of scientific ideas, discovered 
as always by a few, became acceptable to and spread among 
the many. 

Do not let us suppose, however, that the recognition of 
science was immediate and universal. Dislike of it, and 



1 6 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

mistrust of the consequences of scientific inquiry — es- 
pecially in geology and anthropology, — persisted well into 
the Victorian era, and is not wholly extinct at the present 
day. Quite apart from antipathy to investigation into 
affairs of the mind — which is unpopular and mistrusted 
still, so that good people are still found who will attribute 
anything unusual to the devil, and warn young people from 
it, — there is some slight trace of lingering prejudice against 
the orthodox sciences of Chemistry and Physics and 
and Biology. They have achieved their foothold, they are 
regarded with respect — people do not disdain to make 
money by means of them when the opportunity is forthcom- 
ing — but they are not really liked. They are admitted to 
certain schools on sufferance, as an inferior grade of study 
suited to the backward and the ignorant; they are not re- 
garded with affection and enthusiasm as revelations of 
Divine working to be studied reverently, nor as subjects in 
which the youth of a nation may be wholesomely and solidly 
trained. 

Very well, still more is the time not quite ripe for our 
subject; pioneers must expect hard knocks, the mind of a 
people can change only slowly. Until the mind of a people 
is changed, new truths born before their time must suffer 
the fate of other untimely births; and the , prophet who 
preaches them must expect to be mistaken for a useless 
fanatic, of whom every age has always had too many, and 
must be content to be literally or metaphorically put to death, 
as part of the process of the regeneration of the world. 

The dislike and mistrust and disbelief in the validity or 
legitimacy of psychical inquiry is familiar: the dislike of 
the Natural Sciences is almost defunct. It survives, un- 
doubtedly — they are not liked, though they are tolerated 
— and I am bound to say that part of the surviving dislike 



PRACTICAL WORK 17 

is due not alone to heredity and imbibed ideas, but to the 
hasty and intolerant and exuberant attitude of some men 
of science, who, knowing themselves to be reformers, feel- 
ing that they have a grain of seed-corn to plant and water, 
have not always been content to go about their business in 
a calm and conciliatory spirit, but have sought to hurry 
things on by a rough-shod method of progression, which 
may indeed attain its ends, but gives some pain in the 
process, and perhaps achieves results less admirable than 
those which might have been attained by the exercise of a 
little patience, a little more perception of the point of view 
of others, a little more imagination, a little more of that 
recognition of the insignificance of trifles and of the transi- 
tory character of full-blown fashions which is called a sense 
of humour, a little cultivation of the historic sense. In a 
word, a little more general education. 

But this is a digression. I admit the importance of 
Francis Bacon in the history of the development of the 
national recognition of the natural sciences in England; and 
I wish to suggest that in the history of the psychical 
sciences we too have had a Bacon, — and one not long de- 
parted from us. It is possible that in his two posthumous 
volumes we have a book which posterity will regard as a 
Novum Organon. History does not repeat itself, and I 
would not draw the parallel too close. It may be that 
posterity will regard Myers as much more than that, — as 
a philosophic pioneer who has not only secured recognition 
for, but has himself formulated some of the philosophic 
unification of, a mass of obscure and barely recognised 
human faculties, — thereby throwing a light on the meaning 
of " personality " which may survive the test of time. It 
may be so, but that is for no one living to say. Posterity 
alone, by aid of the experience and further knowledge 



1 8 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

which time brings, is able to make a judgment of real value 
on such a topic as that. 

Meanwhile it is for us to see that time does bring this 
greater knowledge and experience. For time alone is im- 
potent. Millions of years passed on this planet, during 
which the amount of knowledge acquired was small or nil. 
Up to the sixteenth century, even, scientific progress was at 
the least slow. Recently it has been rapid, — none too 
rapid, but rapid. The rate of advance depends upon the 
activities and energies of each generation, and upon the 
organization and machinery which it has inherited from its 
immediate forebears. 

The pioneers who created the S. P. R. have left it in 
trust with us to hand it on to future generations, an efficient 
and powerful machine for the spread of scientific truth, — 
an engine for the advancement of science in a direction 
overgrown with thickets of popular superstition, intermixed 
with sandy and barren tracts of resolute incredulity. We 
have to steer our narrow way between the Scylla of stony 
minds with no opening in our direction, and the Charybdis 
of easy and omnivorous acceptance of every straw and waif, 
whether of truth or falsehool, that may course with the cur- 
rents of popular superstition. 

Need for Qualified Investigators 

Realising this to be our duty, and perceiving that we have 
a long period of danger and difficulty before us, it has be- 
come evident to persons of clear vision that the Society must 
be established on a sound and permanent basis, and must 
endeavour to initiate an attitude of regarding the psychical 
sciences as affording the same sort of scope to a career, the 
same sort of opportunities of earning a livelihood, as do 



PRACTICAL WORK 19 

the longer recognised sciences, — those which are more 
specifically denominated " natural," because of the way they 
fit into our idea of the scheme of nature as by us at present 
recognised, or at any rate because they deal with facts to 
which we have gradually grown accustomed. 

Any young man who wishes to make money should be 
warned off the pursuit of pure science at the outset. People 
who enter the field with that object in view will do neither 
themselves nor science any good. A certain amount of en- 
thusiasm and pioneering proclivity is essential, but fortu- 
nately that has never yet been wanting in our race; witness 
the hardships willingly entered upon, and the risks run, in 
Arctic or Antartic exploration, for nothing more than a liv- 
ing wage. A living wage is however to many a necessity. 
It has always been recognised that those who labour at the 
altar should live by the altar; and a minimum of provision 
for bread and homely needs ought to be at the disposal of 
a Society like this wherewith to enable a person of ability 
and enthusiasm to undertake the prosecution of our re- 
searches in a definite and continuous and so to speak profes- 
sional manner. Hitherto we have depended on the spontane- 
ous and somewhat spasmodic work of amateurs, often of 
wealthy amateurs, before whose minds such questions as 
salary never even momentarily pass. We shall always have 
need of services such as theirs. In the more orthodox 
sciences, in Physics for instance, it has been notorious that 
throughout the last century the best work has often been done 
by people who — having the means of living otherwise se- 
sured to them — were able to devote their time, and often 
considerable means too, to the prosecution of research. 
There has been no rule either way. Some of the leaders 
have been paid a small salary, like Faraday: other have 
had independent means, like Cavendish and Joule. Always 



20 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

I say we shall depend upon and be grateful for the spon- 
taneous work and help of people of means; but we must 
not depend solely upon that, else will young people of 
genius be diverted by sheer force of circumstance into other 
channels, and our nascent science will lose the benefit of 
their powers and continuous work. 

We cannot always depend on spontaneous cases alone. 
They are most important, and are often extremely valuable 
instances of a spontaneous and purposeful exercise of the 
faculty we are investigating, and it would be a great mistake 
to suppose that we have had enough of them. It is essen- 
tial that we be kept informed of recent well-attested cases, 
especially of apparitions at or near the time of death; but 
we shall not make progress in understanding the laws of 
the phenomena and disentangling their deeper meaning if 
we confine ourselves to observation alone. We must 
experiment, we must endeavour to produce and examine 
phenomena as it were in a laboratory — such as I have else- 
where foreshadowed {Journal S. P. R., vi. 357) — and must 
submit them to minute investigation. 

For instance there is the question of so-called spirit 
photography, there are asserted levitations and apports and 
physical movements, none of which have been subjected to 
adequate scientific examination. Many such cases have been 
examined and found fraudulent, and there is great difficulty 
in obtaining the phenomena under prescribed and crucial 
conditions; but until these things have been submitted to 
long-continued scientific scrutiny they will make no undis- 
puted inpression, they will be either improperly accepted or 
improperly rejected, and will continue in that nebulous hazy 
region, the region of popular superstition, from which it is 
the business of this Society to rescue them; raising them on 
to the dry land of science, or submerging them as impostures 



PRACTICAL WORK 21 

in the waters of oblivion. And I may say parenthetically 
that we do not care one iota which alternative fate is in 
store for them : we only want the truth. 

Now I know that some few persons are impatient of such 
an investigation, and decline to see any need for it. They 
feel that if they have evidence enough to justify their own 
belief, further inquiry is superfluous. These have not the 
scientific spirit, they do not understand the meaning of 
" law." A fact isolated and alone, joined by no link to the 
general body of knowledge, is almost valueless. If what 
they believe is really a fact, they may depend upon it that 
it has its place in the cosmic scheme, a place which can be 
detected by human intelligence; and its whole bearing and 
meaning can gradually be made out. 

Moreover their attitude is selfish. Being satisfied them- 
selves they will help us no more. But real knowledge, like 
real w r ealth of any kind, cannot be wrapped up in a napkin; 
it pines for reproduction, for increase: " how am I straight- 
ened till it be accomplished." The missionary spirit, in 
some form or other, is inseparably associated with all true 
and worthy knowledge. Think of a man who, having made 
a discovery in Astronomy, — seen a new planet, or worked 
out a new law, — should keep it to himself and gloat over it 
in private. It would be inhuman and detestable miserliness; 
even in a thing like that, of no manifest importance to man- 
kind. There would be some excuse for a man who lived 
so much in advance of his time that, like Galileo with his 
newly invented and applied telescope, he ran a danger of 
rebuffs and persecution for the publication of discoveries. 
But even so, it is his business to brave this and tell out what 
he knows; still more is it his business so to act upon the mind 
of his generation as to convert it gradually to the truth, and 
lead his fellows to accept what now they reject. 



22 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

Those who believe themselves the repositories of any form 
of divine truth should realise their responsibility. They are 
bound in honour to take such steps as may wisely cause its 
perception and recognition by the mass of mankind. They 
are not bound to harangue the crowd from the nearest plat- 
form: that might be the very way to retard progress and 
throw back the acceptance of their doctrine. The course to 
pursue may be much more indirect than that. The way 
may be hard and long, but to the possessor of worldly means 
it is far easier than to another. If the proper administra- 
tion of his means can conduce to the progress of science, and 
to the acceptance by the mass of mankind of important and 
vivifying knowledge of which they are now ignorant, then 
surely the path lies plain. 

Argumentum ad Dignitatem 

Still however there are persons who urge that a study of 
occult phenomena is beneath the dignity of science, and that 
nothing will be gained of any use to mankind by inquisitive- 
ness regarding the unusual and the lawless, or by gravely 
attending to the freaks of the unconscious or semi-conscious 
mind. 

But — as Myers and Gurney said long ago in Phantasms 
of the Living — it is needful to point out yet once more, 
how plausible the reasons for discouraging some novel re- 
search have often seemed to be, while yet the advance of 
knowledge has rapidly shown the futility and folly of such 
discouragement. 

It was the Father of Science himself who was the first to 
circumscribe her activity. Socrates expressly excluded from 
the range of exact inquiry all such matters as the movements 
and nature of the sun and moon. He wished — and as he 
expressed his wish it seemed to have all the cogency of ab- 



PRACTICAL WORK 23 

solute wisdom — that men's minds should be turned to the 
ethical and political problems which truly concerned them, 
— not wasted in speculation on things unknowable — things 
useless even could they be known. 

In a kindred spirit, though separated from Socrates by the 
whole result of that physical science which Socrates had 
deprecated, we find a great modern systematiser of human 
thought again endeavouring to direct the scientific impulse 
towards things serviceable to man; to divert it from things 
remote, unknowable, and useless if known. What then, in 
Comte's view, are in fact the limits of man's actual home 
and business? the bounds within which he may set himself 
to learn all he can, assured that all will serve to inform his 
conscience and guide his life? It is the solar system which 
has become for the French philosopher what the street and 
market-place of Athens were for the Greek. 

I need not say that Comte's prohibition has been alto- 
gether neglected. No frontier of scientific demarcation has 
been established between Neptune and Sirius, between 
Uranus and Aldebaran. Our knowledge of the fixed stars 
increases yearly; and it would be rash to maintain that 
human conduct is not already influenced by the conception 
thus gained of the unity and immensity of the heavens. 

The criticisms which have met us, from the side some- 
times of scientific, sometimes of religious orthodxy, have 
embodied, in modernised phraseology, nearly every well- 
worn form of timid protest, or obscurantist demurrer, with 
which the historians of science have been accustomed to give 
piquancy to their long tale of discovery and achievement. 

Sometimes we are told that we are inviting the old 
theological spirit to encroach once more on the domain of 
Science; sometimes that we are endeavouring to lay the im- 
pious hands of Science upon the mysteries of Religion. 



24 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

Sometimes we are informed that competent savants have 
already fully explored the field which we propose for our 
investigation. Sometimes that no respectable man of science 
would condescend to meddle with such a reeking mass of 
fraud and hysteria. Sometimes we are pitied as laborious 
triflers who prove some infinitely small matter with mighty 
trouble and pains; sometimes we are derided as attempting 
the solution of gigantic problems by slight and superficial 
means. 

Use of Continued Investigation 

But trie question is reiterated, Why investigate that of 
which we are sure? Why conduct experiments in hyp- 
notism or in telepathy? Why seek to confirm that of which 
we already have conviction? Why value well-evidenced 
narratives of apparitions at times of death or catastrophe, 
when so many have already been collected in Phantasms of 
the Living, and when careful scrutiny has proved that they 
cannot be the result of chance coincidence? 1 There is a 
quite definite answer to this question — an answer at which 
I have already hinted — which I wish to commend to the 
consideration of those who feel this difficulty or ask this sort 
of question. 

The business of Science is not belief but investigation. 
Belief is both the prelude to and the outcome of knowledge. 
If a fact or a theory has had a prima facie case made out 
for it, subsequent investigation is necessary to examine and 
extend it. 

Effective knowledge concerning anything can only be the 
result of long-continued investigation ; belief in the possibility 

1 See the Report of Professor Sidgwick's Committee, Proceedings 
S. P. R., vol. x., p. 394. 



PRACTICAL WORK 25 

of a fact is only the very first step. Until there is some 
sort of tentative belief in the reasonable possibility of a fact 
there is no investigation, — the scientific priest and Levite 
have other business, and pass by on the other, side. And 
small blame to them: they cannot stop to investigate every- 
thing that may be lying by the roadside. If they had been 
sure that it was a fellow creature in legitimate distress they 
would have acted differently. Belief of a tentative kind will 
ensure investigation, not by all but by some of the scientific 
travellers along the road; but investigation is the prelude to 
action, and action is a long process. Some one must attend 
to the whole case and see it through. Others, more pressed 
for time, may find it easier to subscribe their " two pence " 
to an endowment fund, and so give indirect but valuable 
assistance. 

The object of investigation is the ascertainment of law, 
and to this process there is no end. What, for instance, is 
the object of observing and recording earthquakes, and ar- 
ranging delicate instruments to detect the slightest indica- 
tion of earth tremor? Every one knows that earthquakes 
exist, there is no scepticism to overcome in their case; even 
people who have never experienced them are quite ready to 
believe in their occurrence. Investigation into earthquakes 
and the whole of the motile occurrences in the earth's crust, 
is not in the least for the purpose of confirming faith, but 
solely for the better understanding of the conditions and 
nature of the phenomena ; in other words, for the ascertain- 
ment of law. 

So it is in every branch of science. At first among new 
phenomena careful observation of fact is necessary, as when 
Tycho Brahe made measurements of the motion of the 
planets and accumulated a store of careful observations. 
Then came the era of hypothesis, and Kepler waded through 



26 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

guess after guess, testing them pertinaciously to see if any 
one of them would fit all the facts : the result of his strenuous 
life-work being the three laws which for all time bear his 
name. And then came the majestic deductive epoch of 
Newton, welding the whole into one comprehensive system; 
subsequently to be enriched and extended by the labours of 
Lagrange and Laplace; after which the current of scientific 
inquiry was diverted for a time into other less adequately 
explored channels. 

For not at all times is everything equally ripe for inquiry. 
There is a phase, or it may be a fashion, even in Science. 
I spoke of geographical exploration as the feature of 
Elizabeth's time. Astronomical inquiry succeeded it. 
Optics and Chemistry were the dominating sciences of the 
early part of the nineteenth century, Heat and Geology of 
the middle, Electricity and Biology of the later portion. 
Not yet has our branch of psychology had its phase of pop- 
ularity ; nor am I anxious that it should be universally fash- 
ionable. It is a subject of special interest, and therefore 
perhaps of special danger. In that respect it is like other 
studies of the operations of mind, like a scientific enumera- 
tion of the phenomena of religion for instance, like the study 
of anything which in its early stages, looks mysterious and 
incomprehensible. Training and some admixture of other 
studies are necessary for its healthy investigation. The day 
will come when the science will put off its foggy aspect, be- 
wildering to the novice, and become easier for the less well- 
balanced and more ordinarily-equipped explorer. At 
present it is like a mountain shrouded in mist, whose sides 
offer but little secure foothold, — where climbing, though 
possible, is difficult and dangerous. 

As a Society we exist to curb venturesome novices, and 
to support trusted and experienced climbers by roping our- 



PRACTICAL WORK 27 

selves together so that we may advance safely and in unison, 
— guarding ourselves from foolhardy enterprises, but fac- 
ing such legitimate difficulties as lie in our path, and resolved 
that, weather and uncontrollable circumstances permitting, 
our exploration shall continue, and the truth, whatever it 
may be, be ascertained. 

The assuring of ourselves as to facts is one of our duties, 
and it is better to hestitate too long over a truth than to 
welcome an error, for a false gleam may lead us far astray 
unless it is soon detected. 

Another of our duties is the making and testing of 
hypotheses, so as gradually to make a map of the district and 
be able to explain it to future travellers. We have to com- 
bine the labours of Tycho with those of Kepler, and thus 
prepare the way for a future Newton, who has not yet ap- 
peared above the psychical horizon. 

His advent must depend upon how far we of this and the 
next few generations are faithful to our trust, how far we 
work ourselves, and by our pecuniary means enable others to 
work; and I call upon those who are simultaneously blessed 
with this world's goods and likewise inspired with confidence 
in the truth and value of mental and spiritual knowledge, to 
bethink themselves whether, either in their lifetime or by 
their wills, they cannot contribute to the world's progress in 
a beneficent way, so as to enable humanity to rise to a 
greater height of aspiration and even of religion; — as they 
will if they are enabled to start with a substantial foundation 
of solid scientific fact on which to erect their edifice of faith. 

If it be said that investigation should not be expensive, I 
would point to what is expended on the investigation of 
the orthodox sciences. Before Columbus's voyage could be 
undertaken, the Courts of Europe had to be appealed to for 
funds. Before astronomical discoveries can be made, large 



28 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

observatories and costly telescopes have to be provided, — 
and not one only, but many, so that by collaboration of ob- 
servers in many parts of the world the truth may be ascer- 
tained. 

Look at the expense of geographical and ethnological ex- 
ploration to-day. Think of the highly equipped physical 
laboratories, one of which is maintained at every College 
or University in the civilised world. And as to chemical 
laboratories, — remember that every large commercial 
chemical manufacturing firm in Germany maintains a band 
of trained and competent chemists, always investigating, in 
the hope of a new compound or a new process or some little 
profitable improvement. 

Money is not scarce, and if people realised the interest 
of science to the human race it would be poured out far 
more lavishly than it is at present. Certain small special 
sums are now provided for the investigation of disease. 
The origin of Malaria has been traced, and this disease has 
some chance of being exterminated, so that the tropical belt 
of the earth may become open to white habitation. Cancer 
is being pursued to its lair, without success so far; but funds 
for researches such as these are bound to be forthcoming. 
When practical benefits can be definitely foreseen, people feel 
justified in spending money even on Science; though as a 
rule that and Education are things on which they are 
specially economical. Municipal extravagance in any such 
direction is sternly checked, though in other directions it 
may be permitted. 

And why should not psychical investigation lead to prac- 
tical results? Are we satisfied with our treatment of 
criminals? As civilised people are we content to grow a 
perennial class of habitual criminals, and to keep them in 
check only by devices appropriate to savages ; hunting them, 



PRACTICAL WORK 29 

flogging then, locking them up, exterminating them? Any 
savage race in the history of the world could do as much 
as that; and if they know no better they are bound to do it 
for their own protection. Society cannot let its malefactors 
run wild, any more than it can release its lunatics. Till 
it understands these things it must lock them up, but the 
sooner it understands them the better; an attempt at com- 
prehension is being made by criminologists in Italy, France, 1 
and elsewhere. Force is no remedy: intelligent treatment 
is. Who can doubt but that a study of obscure mental 
facts will lead to a theory of the habitual criminal, to the 
tracing of his malady as surely as malaria has been traced 
to the mosquito? And once we understand the evil the 
remedy will follow. Already hypnotic treatment, or treat- 
ment by suggestion, occurs to one; and quite normal 
measures of moral improvement can also be tried. The 
fact of imprisonment ought to lend itself to brilliant efforts 
at reform : such efforts are the only real justification for de- 
struction of liberty. The essence of manhood is to be free 
— for better for worse, free — and coercion is only justified 
if it is salutary. It is a great advantage to doctors to have 
their patients collected compactly in a hospital — and with- 
out it medical practice would languish; it ought to be a 
similar advantage — a similar opportunity — to have 
criminals herded together in gaols, and lunatics in asylums. 
It is unwise and unscientific to leave prisoners merely to 
the discipline of warders and the preaching of chaplains. 
That is not the way to attack a disease of the body politic. 
I have no full-blown treatment to suggest, but I foresee that 
there will be one in the future. Experiments are already 
being made in America, in the prisons of Elmira and Con- 

1 E. g. Bulletin de Vlnstitut General Psychologiquc, dirige par Dr. Pierre 
Janet, Decembre, 1902, p. 225. 



30 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

cord, — experiments of hope, if not yet of achievement. 
Society will not be content always to employ methods of 
barbarism; the resources of civilisation are not really ex- 
hausted, though for centuries they have appeared to be. 
The criminal demands careful study on the psychical side, 
and remedy or palliation will be a direct outcome of one 
aspect of our researches. The influence of the unconscious 
or subliminal self, the power of suggestion, the influence of 
one mind over another, the phenomena of so-called " posses- 
sion," — these are not academic or scientific facts alone: 
they have a deep practical bearing, and sooner or later it 
must be put to the proof. 

Hint to Investigators 

To return to the more immediate and special aspect of 
our work: one of the things I want to impress upon all 
readers, especially upon those who are gifted with a faculty 
for receiving impressions which are worth recording, is that 
too much care cannot be expended in getting the record ex- 
act. Exact in every particular, especially as regards the 
matter of time. In recording a vision or an audition or 
some other impression corresponding to some event else- 
where, there is a dangerous tendency to try to coax the 
facts to fit some half-fledged preconceived theory and to 
make the coincidence in point of time exact. 

Such distortions of truth are misleading and useless. What 
we want to know is exactly how the things occurred, not how 
the impressionist would have liked to have them occur, or how 
he thinks they ought to have occurred. If people attach im- 
portance to their own predilections concerning events in the 
Universe, they can be set forth in a footnote for the guid- 
ance of anyone who hereafter may think of starting a Uni- 



PRACTICAL WORK 31 

verse on his own account: but such speculations are of no 
interest to us who wish to study and understand the Universe 
as it is. If the event preceded the impression, by all means 
let us know it, — and perhaps some one may be able to de- 
tect a meaning in the time-interval, when a great number 
of similar instances are compared, hereafter. If the impres- 
sion preceded the event, by all means let us know that too, 
and never let the observation be suppressed from a ridicu- 
lous idea that such anticipation is impossible. Nor let us 
exclude well-attested physical phenomena from historical 
record, on any similar prejudice of impossibility. We want 
to learn what is possible, not to have minds made up be- 
forehand and distort or blink the facts to suit our preconcep- 
tions. 

If the correspondence in time is exact, then let future 
students be able to ascertain that also from the record; but 
the recorder need not make any remark about " allowing 
for difference of longitude " or anything of that kind, unless 
indeed he is an astronomer or some one who thoroughly 
understands all about " time." Arithmetic of that sort can 
be left to those who subsequently disentangle and criticise 
the results. The observer may of course indicate his ideas 
on the subject if he chooses, but his record should be accu- 
rate and cold-blooded and precise. Sentencesi indicating 
contemporary emotion, in so far as that is part of the facts 
to be recorded, are entirely in place; but ejaculations of sub- 
sequent emotion, speculation as to the cause, or moralisation 
as to the meaning, are out of place. It may be said that 
these do no harm, and can easily be ignored by a future 
student; and that is so in one sense, but their atmosphere 
is rather apt to spoil the record, to put the recorder into 
an unscientific frame of mind. And, even when they have 
biassed him no whit, they suggest to a subsequent reader 



32 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

that they may have biassed him, and so discount unfairly 
the value of his testimony. 

With respect to the important subject of possible pre- 
diction, on which our ideas as to the ultimate nature of time 
will so largely depend, every precaution should be taken to 
put far from us the temptation or the possibility of improv- 
ing the original record after the fact to which it refers has 
occurred, if it ever does occur; and to remember that though 
we have done nothing of the sort, and are in all respects 
honest, and known to be honest and truthful, yet the con- 
trary may be surmised by posterity or by strangers or 
foreigners who did not know us; and even our friends may 
fancy that we did more than we were aware of, in some 
quite hypothetical access of somnambulic or automatic trance. 
Automatic writers for instance must be assumed open to 
this suspicion, unless they take proper precautions and de- 
posit copies of their writings in some inaccessible and re- 
sponsible custody; because the essence of their phenomenon 
is that the hand writes what they themselves are not aware 
of, and so it is an easy step for captious critics to maintain 
that it may also have been supplemented or amended in some 
way of which they were likewise not aware. 

The establishment of cases of real prediction, not mere 
inference, is so vital and crucial a test of something not yet 
recognised by science that it is worth every effort to make 
its evidence secure. 

Another thing on which I should value experiments is the 
detection of slight traces of telepathic power in quite normal 
persons, — in the average man for instance, or, rather more 
likely perhaps, in the average child. The power of receiv- 
ing telepathic impressions may be a rare faculty existing only 
in a few individuals, and in them fully developed; but it is 
equally possible, and, if one may say so, more likely, that 



PRACTICAL WORK 33 

what we see in them is but an intensification of a power 
which exists in every one as a germ or nucleus. If such 
should be the fact, it behooves us to know it ; and its recogni- 
tion would do more to spread a general belief in the fact 
of telepathy — a belief by no means as yet universally or 
even widely spread — than almost anything else. 

One method that has been suggested for detecting faint 
traces of the power, is to offer to a percipient the choice of 
one out of two things, and to see whether in multitudes of 
events the predetermination of a bystander as to which shall 
be chosen, exerts any influence whatever on the result. 
Many devices can be made for carrying this out, but ex- 
periments of greater interest and novelty will be made if 
the devices are left to individual ingenuity and experience. 
Leisure, and patience, and system, and industry, are the 
requisites : and if I do not myself practise what I preach, in 
this and other particulars, it is because, whatever I may lack 
of the others, I am at present conspicuously lacking in the 
first of these essentials. 

Bearing On Allied Subjects 

There are many topics on which I might speak: one is 
the recent advance in our knowledge of the nature of the 
atom, and the discovery of facts concerning the ether and 
matter which I think must have some bearing, — some to 
me at present quite unknown bearing, — on the theory of 
what are called " physical phenomena " ; but it is hardly 
necessary to call the attention of educated persons to the 
intense interest of this most recent purely scientific subject. 

On another topic I might say a few words, viz., on the 
ambiguity clinging round the phrase " action at a distance," 
in connection with telepathy. Physicists deny action at a 



34 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

distance, at least most of them do, — I do for one ; — at the 
same time I admit telepathy. Therefore it is supposed I 
necessarily assume that telepathy must be conducted by an 
etherial process analogous to the transmission of waves. 
That is however a non-sequitur. The phrase " action at a 
distance " is a technical one. Its denial signifies that no 
physical force is exerted save through a medium. There 
must either be a projectile from A to B, or a continuous 
medium of some kind extending from A to B, if A exerts 
force upon B, or otherwise influences it by a physical process. 

But what about a psychical process? There is no such 
word in physics; the term is in that connection meaningless. 
A physicist can make no assertion on it one way or the other. 
If A mesmerises B, or if A makes an apparition of himself 
appear to B, or if A conveys a telepathic impression to B; 
is a medium necessary then ? As a physicist I do not know : 
these are not processes I understand. They may not be 
physical processes at all. 

Take it further : — A thinks of B, or A prays to B, or 
A worships B. — Is a medium necessary for these things? 
Absolute ignorance ! The question is probably meaning- 
less and absurd. Spiritual and psychical events do not enter 
into the scheme of Physics; and when a physicist denies 
" action at a distance " he is speaking of things he is com- 
petent to deal with, — of light and sound and electricity and 
magnetism and cohesion and gravitation, — he is not, or 
should not be, denying anything psychical or spiritual at all. 
All the physical things, he asserts, necessitate a medium; 
but beyond that he is silent. If telepathy is an etherial 
process, as soon as it is proved to be an etherial process, it 
will come into the realm of physics; till then it stays out- 
side. 

There are rash speculators who presume to say that 



PRACTICAL WORK 3s 

spiritual and psychical and physical are all one. In the 
higher reaches of Philosophy this may have some meaning 

— there may be some advantage in thus treating questions 
of ultimate Ontology. — boundaries and classification must 
be recognised as human artifices; but for practical purposes 
distinctions are necessary, and if people unqualified in Meta- 
physics make these assertions I venture to say that the in- 
stinct for simplification has run away with them, that they 
are trespassing out of bounds and preaching what they do 
not know, eking out a precarious ignorance with cheap dog- 
matism. 

There is one important topic on which I have not yet 
spoken, — I mean the bearing of our inquiry on religion. It 
is a large subject and one too nearly trenching on the region 
of emotion to be altogether suitable for consideration by a 
scientific Society. Yet every science has its practical appli- 
cations. — though they are not part of the science, they are 
its legitimate outcome, — and the value of the science to 
humanity must be measured in the last resort by the use 
which humanity can make of it. To the enthusiast, knowl- 
edge for its own sake, without ulterior ends, may be enough, 

— and if there were none of this spirit in the world we 
should be poorer than we are; — but for the bulk of man- 
kind this is too high, too arid a creed, and people in general 
must see just enough practical outcome to have faith that 
there may be yet more. 

That our researches will ultimately have some bearing, 
some meaning, for the science of theology, I do not doubt. 
What that bearing may be I can only partly tell. I have 
indicated in Man and the Unherse, 1 Chapter II. called " The 
Reconciliation." part of what I feel on the subject, and I 
have gone as far in that article as I feel entitled, to go. We 

1 A comprehensive book called in America "' Science & Immortality," 



36 AIMS AND OBJECTS 

seek to unravel the nature and hidden powers of man; and a 
fuller understanding of the attributes of humanity cannot 
but have some influence on our theory of Divinity itself. 

If any scientific Society is worthy of encouragement and 
support it should surely be this. If there is any object 
worthy of patient and continued attention, it is surely these 
great and pressing problems of whence, what and whither, 
that have occupied the attention of Prophet and Philosopher 
since human history began. The discovery of a new star, 
of a marking on Mars, of a new element, or of a new ex- 
tinct animal or plant, is interesting: surely the discovery of 
a new human faculty is interesting too. Already the dis- 
covery of " telepathy " constitutes the first-fruits of this 
Society's work, and it has laid the way open to the dis- 
covery of much more. Our aim is nothing less than the 
investigation and better comprehension of human faculty, 
human personality, and human destiny. 



SECTION II 

EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY OR 
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 



CHAPTER III 

SOME EARLY EXPERIMENTS IN THOUGHT- 
TRANSFERENCE 

I AM not attempting a history of the subject; and for 
the observations of Prof. Barrett and others in the 
experimental transference of ideas or images from one 
person to another I must refer students to the first volume 
of the Proceedings of the Society, where a number of fac- 
simile reproductions of transferred diagrams and pictures, 
which are of special interest, will also be found. Prof. 
Barrett had experiments in conjunction with Mr. William 
de Morgan so long ago as 1870-73, and he endeavoured to 
make a communication on the subject to the British Associa- 
tion in 1876; but the subject was unwelcome or the attempt 
premature, and he naturally encountered rebuff. There was 
some correspondence on the subject in Nature in 1881, 
and an article in The Nineteenth Century for June, 1882. 
All I shall do here is to describe some later observations and 
experiments of my own. 

Suffice it to say that the leading members of the London 
Society for Psychical Research — actuated in the first instant 
largely by Prof. Barrett's report — investigated the mat- 
ter, and gradually by pertinacious experiment became con- 
vinced of the reality of thought transference, — taking due 
precaution, as their experience enlarged, against the extra- 
ordinary ingenuity and subtle possibility of code signalling, 
and discriminating carefully between the genuine phenome- 
non and the thought-reading or rather muscle-reading ex- 

39 



4 o THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

hibitions, with actual or partial contact, which at one time 
were much in vogue. 

Before coming to our conclusion as to Thought-trans- 
ference, says Prof. Sidgwick, we considered carefully the 
arguments brought forward for regarding cases of so-called 
" Thought-reading " as due to involuntary indications 
apprehended through the ordinary senses; and we came 
to the conclusion that the ordinary experiments, where con- 
tact was allowed, could be explained by the hypothesis of 
unconscious sensibility to involuntary muscular pressure. 
Hence we have always attached special importance to ex- 
periments in which contact was excluded; with regard to 
which this particular hypothesis is clearly out of court. 

My own first actual experience of Thought-transference, 
or experimental Telepathy, was obtained in the years 
1883 and 1884 at Liverpool, when I was invited by Mr. 
Malcolm Guthrie of that city to join in an investigation 
which he was conducting with the aid of one or two persons 
who had turned out to be sensitive, from among the em- 
ployees of the large drapery firm of George Henry Lee & 
Co. 

A large number of these experiments had been conducted, 
before I was asked to join, throughout the Spring and 
Autumn of 1883, but it is better for me to adhere strictly 
to my own experience and to relate only those experiments 
over which I had control. Accordingly I reproduce here 
a considerable part of my short paper on the subject, origi- 
nally published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychi- 
cal Research. 

Most of these experiments were confirmations of the kind 
of thing that had been observed by other experimenters. 
But one experiment which I tried was definitely novel, and, 
as it seems to me, important; since it clearly showed that 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 41 

when two agents are acting, each contributes to the effect, 
and that the result is due, not to one alone, but to both com- 
bined. The experiment is thus described by me in the 
columns of "Nature," vol. xxx. page 145: — 

An Experiment in Thought-Transference 

Those of your readers who are interested in the subject 
of thought-transference, now being investigated, may be 
glad to hear of a little experiment which I recently tried 
here. The series of experiments was originated and carried 
on in this city by Mr. Malcolm Guthrie, and he has pre- 
vailed on me, on Dr. Herdman, and on one or two other 
more or less scientific witnesses, to be present on several 
occasions, critically to examine the conditions, and to impose 
any fresh ones that we thought desirable. I need not enter 
into particulars, but I will just say that the conditions under 
which apparent transference of thought occurs from one or 
more persons, steadfastly thinking, to another in the same 
room blindfold and wholly disconnected from the others, 
seem to me absolutely satisfactory, and such as to preclude 
the possibility of conscious collusion on the one hand or un- 
conscious muscular indication on the other. 

One evening last week — after two thinkers, or agents, 
had been several times successful in instilling the idea of 
some object or drawing, at which they were looking, into 
the mind of the blindfold person, or percipient - — I brought 
into the room a double opaque sheet of thick paper with a 
square drawn on one side and a St. Andrew's cross or X 
on the other, and silently arranged it between the two 
agents so that each looked on one side without any notion 
of what was on the other. The percipient was not in- 
formed in any way that a novel modification was being 
made; and, as usual, there was no contact of any sort or 
kind, — a clear space of several feet existing between each 
of the three people. I thought that by this variation I 
should decide whether one of the the agents was more active 
than the other; or, supposing them about equal, whether two 



42 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

ideas in two separate minds could be fused into one by the 
percipient. 

In a very short time the percipient made the following 
remarks, every one else being silent: "The thing won't 
keep still." " I seem to see things moving about." "First 
I see a thing up there, and then one down there." u I 
can't see either distinctly." The object was then hidden, 
and the percipient was told to take off the bandage and to 
draw the impression in her mind on a sheet of paper. She 
drew a square, and then said, " There was the other thing 
as well," and drew a cross inside the square from corner 
to corner, saying afterwards, " I don't know what made me 
put it inside." 

The experiment is no more conclusive as evidence than 
fifty others that I have seen at Mr. Guthrie's, but it seems 
to me somewhat interesting that two minds should produce 
a disconnected sort of impression on the mind of the 
percipient, quite different from the single impression which 
we had usually obtained when two agents were both look- 
ing at the same thing. Once, for instance [to take a nearly 
corresponding case under those conditions], when the object 
was a rude drawing of the main lines in a Union Jack, the 
figure was reproduced by the percipient as a whole without 
misgiving; except, indeed, that she expressed a doubt as to 
whether its middle horizontal line were present or not, and 
ultimately omitted it. 

University College, Liverpool, 

5 June 1884. 



It is preferable thus to quote the original record and con- 
temporary mode of publication of an experiment, so as to 
avoid the risk either of minimising or over-emphasising the 
cogency of the circumstances. But I wish to say strongly 
that the experiment was quite satisfactory, and that no rea- 
sonable doubt of its validity has been felt by me from that 
time to this. 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 43 



Report on the Main Series 

I now proceed to give my report on the whole series of 
experiments : — 

In reporting on the experiments conducted by me, at the 
invitation and with the appliances of Mr. Guthrie, I wish 
to say that I had every opportunity of examining and vary- 
ing the minute conditions of the phenomena, so as to satisfy 
myself of their genuine and objective character, in the same 
way as one is accustomed to satisfy oneself as to the truth 
and genuineness of any ordinary physical fact. If I had 
merely witnessed facts as a passive spectator I should not 
publicly report upon them. So long as one is bound to ac- 
cept imposed conditions and merely witness what goes on, 
I have no confidence in my own penetration, and am perfectly 
sure that a conjurer could impose on me, possibly even to 
the extent of making me think that he was not imposing on 
me; but when one has control of the circumstances, can 
change them at will and arrange one's own experiments, one 
gradually acquires a belief in the phenomena observed quite 
comparable to that induced by the repetition of ordinary 
physical experiments. 

I have no striking or new phenomenon to report, but only 
a few more experiments in the simplest and most elementary 
form of what is called Thought-transference; though cer- 
tainly what I have to describe falls under the head of 
" Thought-transference " proper, and is not explicable by 
the merely mechanical transfer of impressions, which is more 
properly described as muscle-reading. 

In using the term " Thought-transference," I would ask 
to be understood as doing so for convenience, because the 
observed facts can conveniently be grouped under such a 



44 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

title ; but I would not be understood as implying any theory 
on the subject. It is a most dangerous thing to attempt 
to convey a theory by a phrase; and to set forth a theory 
would require many words. As it is, the phrase describes 
correctly enough what appears to take place, viz., that one 
person may, under favourable conditions, receive a faint im- 
pression of a thing which is strongly present in the mind, or 
thought, or sight, or sensorium of another person not in con- 
tact, and may be able to describe or draw it, more or less 
correctly. But how the transfer takes place, or whether 
there is any transfer at all, or what is the physical reality 
underlying the terms " mind," " consciousness," " impres- 
sion," and the like; and whether this thing we call mind 
is located in the person, or in the space round him, or in 
both, or neither; whether indeed the term location, as ap- 
plied to mind, is utter nonsense and simply meaningless, — 
concerning all these things I obtrude no hypothesis whatso- 
ever. I may, however, be permitted to suggest a rough and 
crude analogy. That the brain is the organ of conscious- 
ness is patent, but that consciousness is located in the brain 
is what no psychologist ought to assert; for just as the 
energy of an electric charge, though apparently in the con- 
ductor, is not in the conductor, but in the space all round it; 
so it may be that the sensory consciousness of a person, 
though apparently located in his brain, may be conceived of 
as also existing like a faint echo in space, or in other brains, 
although these are ordinarily too busy and preoccupied to 
notice it. 

The experiments which I have witnessed proceed in the 
following way. One person is told to keep in a perfectly 
passive condition, with a mind as vacant as possible; and 
to assist this condition the organs of sense are unexcited, the 
eyes being bandaged and silence maintained. It might be 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 45 

as well to shut out even the ordinary street hum by plugging 
the ears, but as a matter of fact this was not done. 

A person thus kept passive is " the percipient." In the 
experiments I witnessed the percipient was a girl, one or 
other of two who had been accidently found to possess the 
necessary power. Whether it is a common power or not I 
do not know. So far as I am aware comparatively few per- 
sons have tried. I myself tried, but failed abjectly. It was 
easy enough to picture things to oneself, but they did not 
appear to be impressed on me from without, nor did any 
of them bear the least resemblance to the object in the agent's 
mind. (For instance, I said a pair of scissors instead of the 
five of diamonds, — and things like that.) Nevertheless, the 
person acting as percipient is in a perfectly ordinary condi- 
tion, and can in no sense be said to be in a hypnotic state, 
unless this term be extended to include the emptiness of mind 
produced by blindfolding and silence. To all appearance 
a person in a brown study is far more hypnotised than the 
percipients I saw, who usually unbandaged their own eyes 
and chatted between successive experiments. 

Another person sitting near the percipient, sometimes at 
first holding her hands but usually and ordinarily without 
any contact at all but with a distinct intervening distance, 
was told to think hard of a particular object, either a name, 
or a scene, or a thing, or of an object or drawing set up in 
a good light and in a convenient position for staring at. 
This person is " the agent " and has, on the whole, the hard- 
est time of it. It is a most tiring and tiresome thing to stare 
at a letter, or a triangle, or a donkey, or a teaspoon, and to 
think of nothing else for the space of two or three minutes. 
Whether the term " thinking " can properly be applied to 
such barbarous concentration of mind as this I am not sure; 
its difficulty is of the nature of tediousness. 



46 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Very frequently more than one agent is employed, and 
when two or three people are in the room they are all told 
to think of the object more or less strenuously; the idea being 
that wandering thoughts in the neighbourhood certainly can- 
not help, and may possibly hinder, the clear transfer of im- 
pression. As regards the question whether when several 
agents are thinking, only one is doing the work, or whether 
all really produce some effect, a special experiment has led 
me to conclude that more than one agent can be active at the 
same time. We have some right therefore to conclude that 
several agents are probably more powerful than one, but that 
a confusedness of impression may sometimes be produced by 
different agents attending to different parts or aspects of the 
object. 

Most people seem able to act as agents, though some ap- 
pear to do better than others. I can hardly say whether I 
am much good at it or not. I have not often tried alone, 
and in the majority of cases when I have tried I have failed; 
on the other hand, I have once or twice succeeded. We 
have many times succeeded with agents quite disconnected 
from the percipient in ordinary life, and sometimes complete 
strangers to them. Mr. Birchall, the headmaster of the 
Birkdale Industrial School, frequently acted; and the house 
physician at the Eye and Ear Hospital, Dr. Shears, had a 
successful experiment, acting alone, on his first and only visit. 
All suspicion of a pre-arranged code is thus rendered impos- 
sible even to outsiders who are unable to witness the obvious 
fairness of all the experiments. 

The object looked at by the agent is placed usually on a 
small black opaque wooden screen between the percipient 
and agent, but sometimes it is put on a larger screen behind 
the percipient. The objects were kept in an adjoining room 
and were selected and brought in by me, with all due pre- 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 47 

caution, after the percipient was blindfolded. I should say, 
however, that no reliance was placed on, or care taken in, 
the bandaging. It was merely done because the percipient 
preferred it to merely shutting the eyes. After remarkable 
experiments on blindfolding by members of the Society (see 
Journal, S. P. R., vol. i., p. 84), I certainly would not rely 
on any ordinary bandaging; the opacity of the wooden screen 
on which the object was placed was the thing really depended 
on, and it was noticed that no mirrors or indistinct reflectors 
were present. The only surface at all suspicious was the 
polished top of the small table on which the opaque screen 
usually stood. But as the screen sloped backwards at a 
slight angle, it was impossible for the object on it to be thus 
mirrored. Moreover, sometimes I covered the table with 
paper, and often it was not used at all, but the object was 
placed on a screen or a settee behind the percipient; and one 
striking success was obtained with the object placed on a 
large drawing board, loosely swathed in a black silk college 
gown, with the percipient immediately behind the said draw- 
ing board and almost hidden by it. 

As regards collusion and trickery, no one who has wit- 
nessed the absolutely genuine and artless manner in which 
the impressions are described, but has been perfectly con- 
vinced of the transparent honesty of purpose of all con- 
cerned. This, however, is not evidence to persons who have 
not been present, and to them I can only say that to the best 
of my scientific belief no collusion or trickery was possible 
under the varied circumstances of the experiments. 

A very interesting question presents itself as to what is 
really transmitted, whether it is the idea or name of the 
object or whether it is the visual impression. To examine 
this I frequently drew things without any name — perfectly 
irregular drawings. I am bound to say that these irregular 



48 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

and unnamable productions have always been rather diffi- 
cult, though they have at times been imitated fairly well; 
but it is not at all strange that a faint impression of an un- 
known object should be harder to grasp and reproduce than a 
faint impression of a familiar one, such as a letter, a common 
name, a teapot, or a pair of scissors. Moreover, in some 
very interesting cases the idea or name of the object was cer- 
tainly the thing transferred, and not the visual impression at 
all ; this specially happened with one of the two percipients ; 
and, therefore, probably in every case the fact of the object 
having a name would assist any faint impression of its ap- 
pearance which might be received. 

As to aspect, i.e., inversion or perversion, — so far as my 
experience goes it seems perfectly accidental whether the ob- 
ject will be drawn by the percipient in its actual position or 
in the inverted or perverted position. This is very curious 
if true, and would certainly not have been expected by me. 
Horizontal objects are never described as vertical, nor vice 
versa; and slanting objects are usually drawn with the right 
amount of slant. 

The two percipients are Miss R. and Miss E. Miss R. 
is the more prosaic, staid, and self-contained personage, and 
she it is who gets the best quasi-visual impression, but she is 
a bad drawer, and does not reproduce it very well. Miss 
E. is, I should judge, of a more sensitive temperament, sel- 
dom being able to preserve a strict silence for instance, and 
she it is who more frequently jumps to the idea or name 
of the object without being able so frequently to " see " it. 

I was anxious to try both percipients at once, so as to com- 
pare their impressions, but I have not met with much suc- 
cess under these conditions, and usually therefore have had 
to try one at a time — the other being frequently absent or 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 49 

in another room, though also frequently present and acting 
as part or sole agent. 

I once tried a double agent — that is, not two agents 
thinking of the same thing, but two agents each thinking 
of a different thing. A mixed and curiously double impres- 
sion was thus produced and described by the percipient, and 
both the objects were correctly drawn. This experiment has 
been separately described, as it is important. See pages 41 
and 51. 

\_N.B. — The actual drawings made in all the experiments, 
failures and successes alike, are preserved intact by 
Mr. Guthrie.] 

Description of some of the Experiments 

In order to describe the experiments briefly I will put in 
parentheses everything said by me or by the agent, and in in- 
verted commas all the remarks of the percipient. The first 
seven experiments are all that were made on one evening with 
the particular percipient, and they were rapidly performed. 

A.— EXPERIMENTS WITH MISS R. AS PERCIPIENT 

First Agent, Mr. Birchall, holding hands. No one else present 
except myself 

Object — a blue square of silk. — (Now, it's going to be a colour; 
ready.) "Is it green?" (No.) "It's something between green 
and blue. . . . Peacock." (What shape?) She drew a rhom- 
bus. 

[N. B. — It is not intended to imply that this was a success by any 
means, and it is to be understood that it was only to make a start on 
the first experiment that so much help was given as is involved in 
saying " it's a colour." When they are simply told " it's an object," 
or, what is much the same, when nothing is said at all, the field for 



50 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

guessing is practically infinite. When no remark at starting is re- 
corded none was made, except such an one as " Now we are ready," 
— by myself.] 

Next object — a key on a black ground, — (It's an object.) In a 
few seconds she said, " It's bright. ... It looks like a key." 
Told to draw, she drew it just inverted. 

Next object — three gold studs in morocco case. — "Is it yellow? 
. . . Something gold. . . . Something round. ... A 
locket or a watch perhaps." (Do you see more than one round?) 
"Yes, there seem to be more than one. . . . Are there three 
rounds? . . . Three rings." (What do they seem to be set in?) 
" Something bright like beads." [Evidently not understanding or at- 
tending to the question.] Told to unblindfold herself and draw, she 
drew the three rounds in a row quite correctly, and then sketched 
round them absently the outline of the case ; which seemed, therefore, 
to have been apparent to her though she had not consciously attended 
to it. It was an interesting and striking experiment. 

Next object — a pair of scissors standing partly open with their 
points down. — " Is it a bright object? . . . Something long ways 
[indicating vertically]. ... A pair of scissors standing up. 
. . . A little bit open." Time, about a minute altogether. She 
then drew her impression, and it was correct in every particular. The 
object in this experiment was on a settee behind her, but its position 
had to be pointed out to her when, after the experiment, she wanted 
to see it. 

Next object — a drawing of a right-angled triangle on its side. — 
(It's a drawing.) She drew an isosceles triangle on its side. 

Next — a circle with a chord across it. — She drew two detached 
ovals, one with a cutting line across it. 

Next — a drawing of a Union Jack pattern. — As usual in drawing 



^ 



ORIGINAL. REPRODUCTION. 

experiments, Miss R. remained silent for perhaps a minute; then she 
said, " Now I am ready." I hid the object; she took off the hand- 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 51 

kerchief, and proceeded to draw on paper placed ready in front of her. 
She this time drew all the lines of the figure except the horizontal 
middle one. She was obviously much tempted to draw this, and, 
indeed, began it two or three times faintly, but ultimately said, " No, 
I'm not sure," and stopped. 

[end of sitting] 

Experiments with Miss R. — continued 

I will now describe an experiment indicating that one agent may 
be better than another. 

Object — the Three of Hearts. — Miss E. and Mr. Birchall both 
present as agents, but Mr. Birchall holding percipient's hands at first. 
11 Is it a black cross ... a white ground with a black cross on 
it?" Mr. Birchall now let Miss E. hold hands instead of himself, 
and Miss R. very soon said, " Is it a card? " (Right.) " Are there 
three spots on it? . . . Don't know what they are. ... I 
don't think I can get the colour. . . . They are one above the 
other, but they seem three round spots. ... I think they're red, 
but am not clear." 

Next object — a playing card with a blue anchor painted on it 
slantwise j instead of pips. No contact at all this time, but another 

lady, Miss R d, who had entered the room, assisted Mr. B. and 

Misis E. as agents. "Is it an anchor? ... a little on the 
slant." (Do you see any colour?) "Colour is black . . . It's 
a nicely drawn anchor." When asked to draw she sketched part of 
it, but had evidently half forgotten it, and not knowing the use of 
the cross arm, she could only indicate that there was something more 
there, but she couldn't remember what. Her drawing had the right 
slant. 

Another object — two pair of coarse lines crossing; drawn in red 
chalk, and set up at some distance from agents. No contact. " I only 
see lines crossing." She saw no colour. She afterwards drew them 
quite correctly, but very small. [It was noticeable that the unusual 
distance at which the drawing was placed from the agent on this 
occasion seemed to be interpreted by the percipient as smallness of 
size.] 



52 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Double object. — It was now that I arranged the double object 

between Miss R d and Miss E., who happened to be sitting nearly 

facing one another. [See Nature, June 12th, 1884, for the published 
report of this particular incident which has been reproduced above.] 
The drawing was a square on one side of the paper, a cross on the 
other. Miss R d looked at the side with the square on it. Miss 



□ X 



ORIGINAL. REPRODUCTION. 

E. looked at the side with the cross. Neither knew what the other 
was looking at — nor did the percipient know that anything unusual 
was being tried. Mr. Birchall was silently asked to take off his 
attention, and he got up and looked out of window before the draw- 
ings were brought in, and during the experiment. There was no 
contact. Very soon Miss R. said, " I see things moving about 
. . . I seem to see two things . . . I see first one up there 
and then one down there ... I don't know which to draw. 
. . . I can't see either distinctly." (Well anyhow, draw what 
you have seen.) She took off the bandage and drew first a square, 
and then said, " Then there was the other thing as well . . . 
afterwards they seemed to go into one," and she drew a cross inside 
the square from corner to corner, adding afterwards, " I don't know 
what made me put it inside." 

The next is a case of a perfect stranger acting as agent by himself 
at the first trial. Dr. Shears, house physician at the Eye and Ear 
Infirmary, came down to see the phenomena, and Miss R. having 
arrived before the others, Mr. Guthrie proposed his trying as agent 
alone. Dr. Shears, therefore, held Miss R.'s hand while I set up in 
front of him a card : nothing whatever being said as to the nature of 
the object. 

Object — the five of clubs, at first on white ground. " Is it some- 
thing bright?" (No answer, but I changed the object to a black 
ground where it was more conspicuous.) "A lot of black with a 
white square on it" (Go on.) "Is it a card?" (Yes.) [The 
affirmative answer did not necessarily signify that it was a playing 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 



53 



card, because cards looking like playing cards had been used several 
times previously, on which objects had been depicted instead of pips.] 
"Are there five spots on it?" (Yes.) "Black ones." (Right.) 
" I can't see the suit, but I think it's spades." 

Another object at same sitting, but with several agents, no contact, 
was a drawing of this form — 



ORIGINAL. 



r\ 



REPRODUCTION. 



" I can see something, but I am sure I can't draw it. . . . It's 
something with points all round it. . . . It's a star, . . . or 
like a triangle within a triangle." Asked to draw it, she expressed 
reluctance, said it was too difficult, and drew part of a star figure, 
evidently a crude reproduction of the originial, but incomplete. She 
then began afresh by drawing a triangle, but was unable to proceed. 

I then showed her the object for a few seconds. She exclaimed, 
"Oh yes, that's what I saw. ... I understand it now." I 
said, " Well now draw it." She made a more complete attempt, but 
it was no more really like the original than the first had been. Here 
it is: 



X 



K 



SKETCH MADE AFTER SEEING THE ORIGINAL. 

Experiments at a sitting in the room of Dr. Herdman, Professor of 
Zoology at University College. 

Ojbject — a drawing of the outline of a flag. — Miss R. as percip- 
ient in contact with Miss E. as agent. Very quickly Miss R. said, 



*\ 



ORIGINAL. 



REPRODUCTION. 



54 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

" It's a little flag," and when asked to draw, she drew it fairly well, 
but " perverted " as depicted in the figure. I showed her the flag 
(as usual after a success), and then took it away to the drawing 
place to fetch something else. I made another drawing, but instead 
of bringing it I brought the flag back again, and set it up in the 
same place as before, but upside down. There was no contact this 

time. Miss R d and Miss E. were acting as agents. 

Object — same flag inverted. — After some time, Miss R. said, 
" No, I can't see anything this time. I still see that flag. . . . 
The flag keeps bothering me. ... I shan't do it this time." 
Presently I said, " Well, draw what you saw anyway." She said, 
" I only saw the same flag, but perhaps it had a cross on it." So she 
drew a flag in the same position as before, but added a cross to it. 
Questioned as to aspect she said, " Yes, it was just the same as be- 
fore." 



Object — an oval gold locket hanging by a bit of string with a lit- 
tle price label attached. — Placed like the former object on a large 
drawing board, swathed in a college gown. The percipient, Miss 
R., close behind the said board and almost hidden by it. Agents, 

Miss R d and Miss E. sitting in front; no contact; nothing said. 

" I see something gold, . . . something hanging, . . . like 
a gold locket." (What shape?) "It's oval," indicating with her 
fingers correctly. (Very good so far, tell us something more) — 
[meaning ticket at top]. But no more was said. When shown the 
object she said, " Oh yes, it was just like that," but she had seen 
nothing of the little paper ticket. 

Next object — a watch and chain pinned up to the board as on a 
waistcoat. — This experiment was a failure, and is only interesting 
because the watch-ticking sounded abnormally loud, sufficient to give 
any amount of hint to a person on the look out for such sense 
indications. But it is very evident to those witnessing the experi- 
ments that the percipient is in a quite different attitude of mind to 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 55 

that of a clever guesser, and ordinary sense indications seem wholly 
neglected. I scarcely expected, however, that the watch-ticking could 
pass unnoticed, though indeed we shuffled our feet to drown it some- 
what, but so it was; and all we got was " something bright . . . 
either steel or silver. . . . Is it anything like a pair of scissors? " 
(Not a bit.) 

I have now done with the selection of experiments in which Miss 
R. acted as percipient; and I will describe some of those made with 
Miss E. At the time these seemed perhaps less satisfactory and 
complete, but there are several points of considerable interest notice- 
able in connection with them. 

B.— EXPERIMENTS WITH MISS E. AS PERCIPIENT 

Object — an oblong piece of red (cerise) silk. Agent, Mr. B., in 
contact.— " Red." (What sort of red?) " A dark red." (What 
shape?) "One patch." (Well, what shade is it?) "Not a pale 
red." 

Next object — a yellow oblong. Agent as before. — "A dusky 
gold colour. ... A square of some yellow shade." 

Object — the printed letter r. Told it was a letter; agent as be- 
fore. — " I can see R." (What sort of R?) "An ordinary capi- 
tal R." 

This illustrates feebly what often, though not always, happens with 
Miss E. — that the idea of the object is grasped rather than its actual 
shape. 

Another object — a small printed e. — " Is it E?" (Yes.) But, 
again, she couldn't tell what sort of E it was. 

Object — a teapot cut out of silver paper. — Present — Dr. Herd- 



-07 

ORIGINAL. REPRODUCTION. 

man, Miss R d, and Miss R., Miss R. holding percipient's hands, 

but all thinking of the object. Told nothing. She said, " Some- 
thing light. ... No colour. . . . Looks like a duck. 
Like a silver duck. . . . Something oval. 



$6 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Head at one end and tail at the other." [This is not uncommon in 
ducks.] The object, being rather large, was then moved farther 
back, so that it might be more easily grasped by the agents as a whole, 
but percipient persisted that it was like a duck. On being told to 
unbandage and draw, she drew a rude and " perverted " copy of the 
teapot, but didn't know what it was unless it was a duck. Dr. 
Herdman then explained that he had been thinking all the time how 
like a duck the original teapot was, and, in fact, had been thinking 
more of ducks than teapots. 

Next object — a hand mirror brought in and set up in front of 

Miss R d. — No contact at first. Told nothing. She said, " Is 

it a colour?" (No.) "No, I don't see anything." The glass was 
then shifted to Miss R. to look at herself in it, holding percipient's 
hand. " No I don't get this." Gave it up. I then hid the mirror 
in my coat, and took it out of the room. Dr. Herdman reports that 
while I was away Miss E. begged to know what the object had been, 
but the agents refused, saying that I had evidently wished to keep 
it secret. Half annoyed, Miss E. said, " Oh, well, it doesn't mat- 
ter. I believe it was a looking-glass." 

Next object — a drawing of a right-angled triangle. No contact. 
— "Is it like that?" drawing a triangle with her finger (no an- 
swer). "It's almost like a triangle." She then drew an isosceles 
triangle. 

Next object — a drawing of two parallel but curved lines. No 
contact. — " I only see two lines," indicating two parallel lines. 
" Now they seem to close up." 

Next object — a tetrahedron outline rudely drawn in projection. 



A 



— "Is it another triangle?" (No answer was made, but I silently 
passed round to the agents a scribbled message, " Think of a pyra- 
mid.") Miss E. then said, " I only see a triangle." . . . then 
hastily, " Pyramids of Egypt. No, I shan't do this." Asked to 
draw, she only drew a triangle. 



SOME EXPERIMENTS 57 

Object — a rude outline of a donkey or other quadruped. — Still 
no contact at first. " Can't get it, I am sure." I then asked the 
agents to leave the room, and to come in and try one by one. First 

Miss R d, without contact, and then with. Next Miss R., in 

contact, when Miss E. said hopelessly, " An old woman in a poke 
bonnet." Finally I tried as agent alone, and Miss E. said, " It's like 
a donkey, but I can't see it, nor can I draw it." 

General Statements about the Experiments 

In addition to the experiments without single percipients, I 
tried a few with both percipients sitting together — hoping 
to learn something by comparing their different perceptions 
of the same object. But unfortunately these experiments 
were not very successful; sometimes they each appeared to 
get different aspects or the parts of object, but never very 
distinct or perfect impressions. The necessity of imposing 
silence on the percipients, as well as on the agents, was also 
rather irksome, and renders the result less describable with- 
out the actual drawings. I still think that this variation 
might convey something interesting if pursued under favour- 
able circumstances. Whether greater agent-power is neces- 
sary to affect two percipients as strongly as one ; or whether 
the blankness of mind of one percipient re-acts on the other, 
I cannot say. 

With regard to the feelings of the percipients when re- 
ceiving an impression, they seem to have some sort of con- 
sciousness of the action of other minds on them; and once 
or twice, when not so conscious, have complained that there 
seemed to be no " power " or anything acting, and that they 
not only received no impression, but did not feel as if they 
were going to. 

I asked Miss E. what she felt when impressions were com- 



58 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

ing freely, and she said she felt a sort of influence or thrill. 
They both say that several images appear to them sometimes, 
but that one among them persistently recurs, and they have a 
feeling when they fix upon one that it is the right one. 

Sometimes they seem quite certain that they are right. 
Sometimes they are very uncertain, but still right. Occa- 
sionally Miss E. has been pretty confident and yet wrong. 

One serious failure rather depresses them, and after a 
success others often follow. It is because of these rather 
delicate psychological conditions that one cannot press the 
variations of an experiment as far as one would do if deal- 
ing with inert and more dependable matter. Uusually the 
presence of a stranger spoils the phenomenon, though in some 
cases a stranger has proved a good agent straight off. 

The percipients complain of no fatigue as induced by the 
experiments, and I have no reason to suppose that any harm 
is done them. The agent, on the other hand, if very ener- 
getic, is liable to contract a headache; and Mr. Guthrie 
himself, who was a powerful and determined agent for a 
long time, now feels it wiser to refrain from acting, and con- 
ducts the experiments with great moderation. 

If experiments are only conducted for an hour or so a 
week, no harm can, I should judge, result, and it would be 
very interesting to know what percentage of people have the 
perceptive faculty well developed. 

The experiments are easy to try, but they should be tried 
soberly and quietly, like any other experiment. A public 
platform is a most unsuitable place; and nothing tried before 
a mixed or jovial audience can be of the slightest scientific 
value. Such demonstrations may be efficient in putting 
money into the pockets of showmen, or in amusing one's 
friends; but all real evidence must be obtained in the quiet 
of the laboratory or the study. 



CHAPTER IV 

FURTHER EXPERIMENTS IN TELEPATHY 

THE next experience of any importance which I had 
in this kind of experimental telepathy took place 
during a visit to the Austrian province beyond Tyrol 
with some English friends during the summer of 1892, and 
is thus described in the Proceedings of the Society for 
Psychical Research, vol. vii. page 374. 

While staying for a fortnight in the house of Herr von 
Lyro, at Portschach am See, Carinthia, I found that his 
two adult daughters were adepts in the so-called " willing- 
game," and were accustomed to entertain their friends by 
the speed and certainty with which they could perform ac- 
tions decided on by the company; the operator being led 
either by one or by two others, and preferring to be led by 
someone to whom she was accustomed. Another lady stay- 
ing in the house was said to be able to do things equally well, 
but not without nervous prostration. 

On the evening when I witnessed the occurrences nothing 
done could be regarded as conclusive against muscle-reading, 
though the speed and accuracy with which the willed action 
was performed exceeded any muscle-reading that I had pre- 
viously seen, and left me little doubt but that there was some 
genuine thought-transference power. 

Accordingly I obtained permission to experiment in a more 
satisfactory manner, and on several occasions tested the 
power of the two sisters, using one as agent and the other as 

59 



60 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

percipient alternately. Once or twice a stranger was asked 
to act as agent, but without success. 

The operations were conducted in an ordinary simple 
manner. One of the sisters was placed behind a drawing 
board, erected by me on a temporary sort of easel, while 
the other sat in front of the same board; and the objects or 
drawings to be guessed were placed on a ledge in front of 
the board, since we know that it is unsafe to put any trust 
in bandaging of eyes {Journal, I, 84), in full view of the 
one and completely hidden from the other. 

Naturally I attended to the absence of mirrors and all 
such obvious physical complications. The percipient pre- 
ferred to be blindfolded, but no precaution was taken with 
reference to this blindfolding. Agent and percipient were 
within reach of one another, and usually held each other's 
hands across a small table. The kind and amount of con- 
tact was under control, and was sometimes broken altogether, 
as is subsequently related. 

The ladies were interested in the subject, and were per- 
fectly willing to try any change of conditions that I suggested, 
and my hope was gradually to secure the phenomenon with- 
out contact of any kind, as I had done in the previous case 
reported; but unfortunately in the present instance contact 
seemed essential to the transfer. Very slight contact was 
sufficient, for instance through the backs of the knuckles ; but 
directly the hands were separated, even though but a quarter 
of an inch, the phenomena ceased, — reappearing again di- 
rectly contact was established. I tried whether I could 
bridge over the gap effectively with my own, or another 
lady's hand; but that did not do. I also once tried both 
sisters blindfolded, and holding each other by one hand, 
while two other persons completed the chain and tried to act 
as agents. After a time the sisters were asked to draw, 



EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY 61 

simultaneously and independently, what they had u seen"; 
but though the two drawings were close imitations of each 
other, they in this case bore no likeness to the object on 
which the agents had been gazing. My impression, there- 
fore, is that there is some kind of close sympathetic connec- 
tion between the sisters, so that an idea may, as it were, 
reverberate between their minds when their hands touch, 
but that they are only faintly, if at all, susceptible to the in- 
fluence of outside persons. 

Whether the importance of contact in this case depends 
upon the fact that it is the condition to which they have 
always been accustomed, or whether it is a really effective 
aid, I am not sure. 

So far as my own observation went, it was interesting and 
new to me to see how clearly the effect seemed to depend 
on contact, and how abruptly it ceased when contact was 
broken. While guessing through a pack of cards, for in- 
stance, rapidly and continuously, I sometimes allowed contact 
and sometimes stopped it; and the guesses changed, from 
frequently correct to quite wild, directly the knuckles or finger 
tips, or any part of the skin of the two hands, ceased to 
touch. It was almost like breaking an electric circuit. At 
the same time, partial contact seemed less effective than a 
thorough hand grasp. 

It is perfectly obvious how strongly this dependence on 
contact suggests the idea of a code; and I have to admit at 
once that this flaw prevents this series of observations from 
having any value as a test case, or as establishing de novo 
the existence of the genuine power. My record only appeals 
to those who, on other grounds, have accepted the general 
possibility of thought-transference, and who, therefore, need 
not feel unduly strained when asked to credit my assertion 
that unfair practices were extremely unlikely ; and that, apart 



62 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

from this moral conviction, there was a sufficient amount of 
internal evidence derived from the facts themselves to satisfy 
me that no code was used. The internal evidence of which 
I am thinking was : ( i ) the occasionally successful reproduc- 
tion of nameless drawings; (2) the occasional failure to get 
any clue to an object or drawing with a perfectly simple and 
easily telegraphed name; (3) the speed with which the 
guesses were often made. 

I wish, however, distinctly to say that none of the evidence 
which I can offer against a prearranged code is scientifically 
and impersonally conclusive, nor could it be accepted as of 
sufficient weight by a sceptic on the whole subject. It is 
only because, with full opportunity of forming a judgment, 
and in the light of my former experience, I am myself satis- 
fied that what I observed was an instance of genuine sympa- 
thetic or syntonic communication, and because such cases 
seem at the present time to be rather rare, that I make this 
brief report on the circumstances. 

I detected no well-marked difference between the powers 
of the two sisters, and it will be understood that one of them 
was acting as agent and the other as percipient in each case. 
Sometimes the parents of the girls were present, but 
often only one or two friends of my own, who were good 
enough to invite the young ladies to their sitting-room for 
the purpose of experiment; though such experiments are, 
when carefully performed, confessedly rather tedious and 
dull. 

In the early willing-game experiments, such things were 
done as taking a particular ring from one person's hand and 
putting it on another's; selecting a definite piece of music 
from a pile, taking it to the piano, and beginning to play it. 
The last item (the beginning to play) I did not happen to 
witness, but I was told of it by several persons as more than 



EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY 63 

could be accounted for by muscle-reading. A sceptic, how- 
ever, could of course object that imperfect bandaging would 
enable a title to be read. 

One of the things that I suggested was aimed at excluding 
the operation of unconscious muscular guidance as far as 
possible, and it consisted in desiring that the lady while 
standing in the middle of the room should kick off her shoes 
without touching them and begin to sing a specified song. 
Success, however, was only partial. After one or two at- 
tempts to wander about the room as usual, she did shuffle a 
shoe off, but though she did not actually touch her feet she 
stooped so that the held hand came very near them. She 
then stood some little time uncertain what to do next, and 
at last broke silence by saying " Shall I sing? " 

The first attempt at the more careful experiments was not 
at all successful, but novelty of conditions may fairly be 
held responsible for that. On the second and subsequent 
evenings success was much more frequent: on the whole, I 
think, more frequent than failure, — certainly far beyond 
chance. I proceed to give a fairly complete account of the 
whole series. 

The first object was a teapot; but there was no result. 

The first drawing was the outline of a box with a flag at one cor- 
ner; but that produced no impression. 

Next, for simplicity, I explained that the object this time was a 
letter (Buchstabe), on which it was correctly guessed E. Another 
letter, M, was given quite wrong. A childish back-view outline of a 
cat was given oval like an egg; some other things were unperceived. 

On the second evening I began by saying that the object was a 
colour ; on which red was instantly and correctly stated. 

A blue object which followed was guessed wrong. 

An outline figure of a horse was correctly named. So was the 
letter B. I then drew a square with a diagonal cross in it and a 



6 4 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

round ring or spot just above the cross, the whole looking something 
like the back of an envelope. After a certain interval of silence 
(perhaps two minutes) the lady said she was ready to draw what 
she had " seen," and drew the thing almost exactly, except that the 
spot was put right on the centre of the cross instead of above it, and 
a superfluous faint vertical stroke was added. Its possible resem- 
blance to an envelope was not detected, nor did the reproduction 
suggest the idea : it was drawn as, and looked like, a nameless geomet- 
rical figure. 

The reproductions were nearly always much smaller in size than 
the originals. The agent did not look on while the reproduction 
was being made. It is best for no one to look on while the percipient 
draws, to avoid the possibility of unconscious indications. The orig- 
inal drawings were always made by me, sometimes before, sometimes 
during the sitting. These conditions were all satisfactory. 

On the third evening I began with a pack of cards, running 
through them quickly; with 2 reporters, one recording the card held 
up, the other recording the guess made,' without knowing whether it 
was right or wrong. I held up the cards one after the other and 
gave no indication whether the guesses were right or wrong. The 
suit was not attempted, so that the chances of error were, I suppose, 
12 to i. 

On comparing the two lists afterwards, out of 16 guesses only 6 
were wrong. Full contact was allowed during this series. The 
lists are reproduced below. 

The card guessing is obviously not of the slightest use unless bona 
fides are certain, but, given that, it affords the readiest method of 
studying the effect of varied conditions, interposed obstacles, and such 
like. The whole pack was always used and I simply cut it at ran- 
dom and held up the bottom card. About io or 12 cards could be 
got through in a minute. 

The following is the list of the first card series. Full contact 
allowed : 



EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY 65 

CARDS LOOKED AT. CARDS GUESSED. 

Seven of Spades Seven 

Six of Hearts Six 

Queen of Spades King 

Nine of Spades Nine 

Three of Spades Six 

Eight of Diamonds Eight 

Ace of Clubs Ace 

Knave of Diamonds Queen 

Five of Diamonds Five 

Two of Spades Ace 

Ten of Hearts Six 

King of Diamonds King 

Ace of Spades Ace 

Nine of Diamonds Six 

Eight of Hearts . Eight 

Four of Spades Four 2 1-2 

Thus, out of sixteen trials, 10 were correct and 6 were wrong. 

Whatever may be the cause of this amount of success, 
chance is entirely out of the question, since the probability of 
so many successes as ten in sixteen trials, when the individual 
probability each time is one-thirteenth, is too small to be 
taken into account. 

The theory of such a culculation is given in Todhunter's 
Algebra, articles 740 and 741 ; but as exactness in such a 
case is rather tedious and unnecessary, we may over-estimate 
the total probability by calculating it as follow: ^ (^) 10 ; 
thus leaving out the factor '(") 6 . This factor would be 
necessary to give the chance of ten successes exactly; but that 
is needlessly narrow, since there is no particular point in the 
exact number of 10. The chance of ten at least is more like 
what we have to express. 



66 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

So an over-estimate of probability is ^; that is to say, 
there is less than one chance in ten million that such a result 
would occur at perfect random, i. e., without any special 
cause. 

Some guesses were made, both with cards and objects, on another 
evening, without contact, but none were successful. With contact 
there was success again. 

I then w^ent back to simple drawings; with the result that a cross 
was reproduced as a cross; a figure like 4 petals was reproduced in 
two ways, one of them being a vague 5-petalled figure. 

An object consisting of an ivory pocket measure, standing on end 
like an inverted V, was drawn fairly well as to general aspect. 

A sinuous line was reproduced as a number of sinuous lines; a 
triangle or wedge, point downward, was reproduced imperfectly. 

On other evenings other simple diagrams were tried, such as a 
face, reproduced as 3 rounds with dots and cross; and a figure 
like an A with an extra long cross stroke, which could be easily 
signalled as an A, but which was reproduced correctly as a geomet- 
rical diagram with the long stroke prominent. 

A circle with 3 radii was reproduced as a circle with roughly in- 
scribed triangle. 

The number 3145 was reproduced orally and very quickly as 3146; 
715 also quickly as "714, no 715." The written word hund was 
reproduced correctly, but with a capital initial letter. 

And being told that they had previously thus reproduced a word 
in an unknown language (not unknown character), viz., Hungarian, 
I tried the Greek letters <£cuSw; this, however, was considered too 
puzzling and was only reproduced as Uaso, 

A French high-heeled shoe, of crockery, set up as object, was drawn 
by the percipient very fairly correctly, and said to be something like a 
boot, and a protuberance was tacked on where the heel was. 

A white plaster cast of a child's hand, next tried, failed to give 
any impression. An unlighted candle in candlestick was unsuccess- 
ful, and it was objected that there was too much glare of light. Sub- 
sequently the percipient said she had seen the general outline of a 



EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY 



67 



candlestick, but did not think of its being the thing. A teapot and a 
cup both failed, and two of the drawings did not succeed in stimu- 
lating any colourable imitation. 

Lastly, another set of card trials were made, with the object of 
testing the effect of various kinds of contact: a card series being 
quick and easy to run through. 

CARD 
EXHIBITED 
TO AGENT. 

Full contact with both 'Nine 



hands 

Contact with tips 
hnsers onlv . 



of 



iKing 
[Knave 

IXine 
Nine 
Queen 
Eight 
Five 
Seven 
Three 
Ten 
Queen 
Ace 
rAce 
"\Knave 
Xo direct contact, but "King 
gap bridged by other*. Four 
person's hand 



Contact with one 
ger of one hand . 



Xo contact 



nn- 



Slight contact 
knuckles 



Full contact asain 



of 



. [Ten 
Tight 

Six 
-Two 

Knave 

Seven 

Three 

Four 

Ace of diamonds 

Xine of clubs held 
sidewavs 



CARD 
NAMED BY 

PERCIPIENT. 

Xine 

King 

Two 

Nine 

Ten 

Two 

Eight 

Six 

Seven 

Four 

Six 

Two 

Ace 

Four 

Five 

Four 

Eight 

Seven 

Six 

Ace 

Two 

Ace 

Six 

Three 

Four 

Ace — red — diamond 

Xine — clubs 



68 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

The record of this series is more complete than that of another 
varying contact series, — reported below, — but it did not strike me 
as so instructive at the time; and as it came toward the end of an 
evening there was probably some fatigue. 

The last two entries represent attempts to get the suit as well; 
but as the particulars are given in stages there is no particular advan- 
tage in thus naming a card completely, and it takes a longer time. 

On another evening the amount of contact was varied, but I 
omitted to call out to the reporter the position of the hands with 
reference to each other. One hand of each person lay on a table, and 
I sometimes made them touch, sometimes separated them, all the time 
going on with the card series. My impression at the time was (as 
expressed above), that pronounced failure began directly I broke con- 
tact, but that mere knuckle contact was sufficient to permit some 
amount of success. [When successes are frequent in the following 
list, fairly complete contact may be assumed. At other times I 
broke and united the two hands as I chose, for my own edification, 
and was struck with the singular efficiency of contact.] 

I can only give the record as it stands. I believe we began with- 
out any contact, but very soon made the hands touch intermittently. 

Second Card Series. Varying amount of contact: sometimes none. 
CARD SHOWN. CARD GUESSED. 

Two of Spades Knave 

Ace of Diamonds Five 

Knave of Diamonds Knave 

IO of Diamonds 9 

6 of Hearts 5 

8 of Hearts 9 

9 of Diamonds Ace 

King of Diamonds King 

10 of Hearts io 

9 of Clubs 9 

\ce Ace 

Queen Two 



EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY 69 

CARD SHOWN. CARD GUESSED. 

Queen Queen 

, Knave Ace 

King King 

Eight Eight 

Eight . Eight 

Seven Eight 

Ace Ace 

Knave Knave 

Seven Seven 

Four . Four 

9 6 

Queen 3 

King King 

Ace 7 

Ace . . 5 

5 . ' 10 

5 4 

6 7 

5 3 

6 .6 

2 3 

3 . 6 

4 4 

2 8 

4 5 

3 4 

3 Knave 

Where lines are drawn it is because I called out some change in 
the contact; but I made other changes whose occurrence is not re- 
corded. 



7 o THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

The only use to be made of the record of this series, therefore, is to 
treat it as a whole and to observe that out of 39 trials 16 were cor- 
rect and 23 wrong. 

On this occasion there was one reporter who wrote down 
both what he saw and what he heard; and the operation 
was so rapid that he had sometimes barely time to do the 
writing. Towards the end of a series, fatigue on the part 
of either agent or percipient generally seemed to spoil the 
conditions. 

It is manifest that these experiments should not be con- 
ducted too long consecutively, nor repeated without sufficient 
interval; but if common sense is used there is nothing 
deleterious in the attempt, and if more persons tried, prob- 
ably the power would be found more widely distributed than 
is at present suspected. 

I wish to express gratitude to the Fraulein von Lyro and 
their parents, for the courtesy with which they acquiesced 
in my request for opportunities of experiment, and for the 
willingness with which they submitted to dull and irksome 
conditions, in order to enable me to give as good evidence as 
possible. 

Experiments at a Distance 

For more recent experiments, and for experiments con- 
ducted over a considerable intervening distance, I must refer 
to the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
vol. xxi., where an account is given of the notable and care- 
ful series of observations made by two lady members of the 
Society, Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden. These ladies, 
while at their respective homes, or staying in country houses 
and other places at a distance from each other, endeavoured 
to transmit an impression of scenes and occupations from one 



EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY 71 

to the other. They kept a careful record both of what they 
tried to send, and of what was received. And when these 
records are compared, the correspondence is seen to be be- 
yond and above anything that might be due to chance. 

Collusion might rationally be urged as an explanation, by 
strangers; but that is not an explanation that can be accepted 
by those who know all the facts. 

When Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden began their experi- 
ments in 1905, Miss Miles was living in London, and Miss 
Ramsden in Buckinghamshire, and the arrangement was that 
Miss Miles should play the part of agent, Miss Ramsden that 
of percipient, the times of the experiment being fixed before- 
hand. Miss Miles noted, at the time of each experiment, in 
a book kept for the purpose, the idea or image which she 
wished to convey; while Miss Ramsden wrote down each 
day the impressions that had come into her mind, and sent 
the record to Miss Miles before knowing what she had at- 
tempted on her side. Miss Miles then pasted this record 
into her book opposite her own notes, and in some cases 
added a further note explanatory of her circumstances at the 
time; since to these it was found that Miss Ramsden's im- 
pressions often corresponded. Whenever it was possible 
Miss Miles obtained confirmatory evidence from other 
persons as to the circumstances that had not been noted at 
the time, and the corroboration of these persons was written 
in her book. All the original records of these experiments 
have been submitted to the Editor of the Proceedings of the 
Society for Psychical Research, and have passed that very 
critical ordeal. 

In the second series of experiments, in October and 
November 1906, Miss Miles, the agent, was staying first 
near Bristol and afterwards near Malmesbury in Wiltshire; 
while Miss Ramsden, the percipient, was living all the time 



72 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

near Kingussie, Inverness-shire, and therefore at a distance 
of about 400 miles from the agent. During the last three 
days of the experiments, Miss Miles, unknown to Miss 
Ramsden, was in London. 

The general plan of action was that Miss Ramsden should 
think of Miss Miles regularly at 7 p. m. on every day that 
an experiment was to be tried, and should write her impres- 
sions on a postcard or letter card, which was posted almost 
always on the next morning to Miss Miles. These post- 
cards or letter cards were kept by Miss Miles and pasted 
into her notebook, so that the postmarks on them show the 
time of despatch. And copies of many of these postcards 
were sent also at the same time to Professor Barrett, who 
had advised concerning the method of experiment. 

Miss Miles on her side had no fixed time for thinking of 
Miss Ramsden, but thought of her more or less during the 
whole day, and in the evening noted briefly what ideas had 
been most prominently before her mind during the day, and 
which she wished to convey, or thought might have been 
conveyed, to Miss Ramsden. These notes were made gen- 
erally on a postcard, which was as a rule, posted to Miss 
Ramsden next day. The postcards were afterwards re- 
turned to Miss Miles to be placed with her records, — so 
that here also the postmarks show the date of despatch of the 
information to Miss Ramsden. 

Out of a total of fifteen days' experiments, the idea that 
Miss Miles was attempting to convey, as recorded on her 
postcards, appeared on six occasions in a complete or partial 
form among Miss Ramsden's impressions on the same date. 
But it also happened that almost every day some of Miss 
Ramsden's impressions represented, pretty closely, something 
that Miss Miles had been seeing or talking about on the 
same day. In other words, — while the agent only sue- 



EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY 73 

ceeded occasionally in transferring the ideas deliberately 
chosen by her for the purpose, the percipient seemed often 
to have some sort of supernormal knowledge of her 
friend's surroundings, irrespective of what that friend had 
specially wished her to see. 

When this happened, Miss Miles at once made careful 
notes of the event or topic to which Miss Ramsden's state- 
ment seemed to refer, and also obtained corroborations from 
her friends on the spot. Further, when Miss Ramsden 
gave descriptions of scenes which seemed to Miss Miles like 
the places where she was staying, she got picture postcards 
of them, or photographed them, to show how far the de- 
scriptions really corresponded. 

The actual record is given in the Proceedings of the 
Society for Psychical Research, vol. xxi., together with illus- 
trations, but it must suffice here to quote the critical and 
judicial opinions of the Editor, which is thus given: — 

" After studying all the records, it appears to us that 
while some of the coincidences of thought between the two 
experimenters are probably accidental, the total amount of 
correspondence is more than can be thus accounted for and 
points distinctly to the action of telepathy between them." 



CHAPTER V 

SPONTANEOUS CASES OF THOUGHT- 
TRANSFERENCE 

ANEW fact of this sort, if really established, must 
have innumerable consequences : among other things 
it may be held to account for a large number of 
phenomena alleged to occur spontaneously, but never yet re- 
ceived with full credence by scientific authority. 

Such cases as those which immediately follow, for in- 
stance, we now begin to classify under the head " spontane- 
ous telepathy," and it is natural to endeavour to proceed 
further in the same direction and use telepathy as a possible 
clue to many other legendary occurrences also; as we shall 
endeavour to show in the next chapter. 

Two Cases 

As stepping stones from the experimental to the spontane- 
ous cases I quote two from a mass of material at the end of 
Mr. Myers's first volume, page 674; the first concerning a 
remote connexion of my own. 

On the 27th of April, 1889, we were expecting my sister-in-law 
and her daughter from South America. My wife, being away from 
home, was unable to meet them at Southampton, so an intimate friend 
of the family, a Mr. P., offered to do so. It was between Derby and 
Leicester about 3. 30 p.m. My wife was travelling in the train. 
She closed her eyes to rest, and at the same moment a telegram paper 
appeared before her with the words, " Come at once, your sister is 
dangerously ill." During the afternoon I received a telegram from 
Mr. P. to my wife, worded exactly the same and sent from Southamp- 

74 



SPONTANEOUS CASES 75 

ton 3. 30 p.m. to Bedford. On my wife's arrival home about 9 p.m. 
I deferred communicating it until she had some refreshment, being 
very tired. I afterwards made the remark, " I have some news for 
you," and she answered, " Yes, I thought so, you have received a 
telegram from Mr. P.!" I said, " How do you know?" She then 
told me the contents and her strange experiences in the train, and 
that it impressed her so much that she felt quite anxious all the rest 
of the journey. 

With regard to the above, my wife had no idea of her sister being 
ill, and was not even at the time thinking about them, but was think- 
ing about her own child she had just left at a boarding school. Also 
the handwriting my wife saw, she recognised at once to be Mr. P.'s. 
But then, again, he would have been writing on a white paper form, 
and the one she saw was the usual brown coloured paper. 

Fredk. L. Lodge. 

In reply to inquiries, Mr. F. Lodge wrote as follows: — 

The letter I sent you, with account of vision, I wrote from my 
wife's dictation. After it occurred in the train she took notice of 
the hour, and from the time marked on the telegram of its despatch 
from Southampton, we at once remarked it must have occurred as 
Mr. P. was filling in a form at Southampton. Mr. P. is now in 
South America constructing a railway line, and will not return to 
England for about a year. The occurrence was mentioned to him. 

Two years having elapsed, my wife could not say the exact time 
now, but it was between 3 and 4 p.m., although when it happened, 
we did notice from the telegram that the time corresponded. 

Fredk. L. Lodge. 

The second case illustrates the communicating of sensa- 
tions, — a possibility verified in the Liverpool experiments 
of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie. A pinch or other pain, or a 
taste caused by some food or chemical, was there often 
transferred from agent to percipient. Contact was usually 
found essential for success in these experimental cases; but, 



76 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

to guard against normal sensation, the agent and percipient 
were arranged in separate rooms, with a specially contrived 
and padded small hole in the wall so that they could hold 
hands through it. Some early experiments of this kind are 
narrated in the first volume of Proceedings, S. P. R., page 
275; but I myself was present at many others of the same 
kind. 

Here follows an account of the incident which happened 
to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn; the narrative having been 
obtained through the kindness of Mr. Ruskin. Mrs. 
Severn says : — 

" Brantwood, Coniston, 
October 2Jth, 1883. 

I woke up with a start, feeling I had had a hard blow on my 
mouth, and with a distinct sense that I had been cut, and was bleeding 
under my upper lip, and seized my pocket-handkerchief, and held it 
(in a little pushed lump) to the part as I sat up in bed; and after 
a few seconds, when I removed it, I was astonished not to see any 
blood, and only then realised it was impossible anything could have 
struck me there, as I lay fast asleep in bed, and so I thought it was 
only a dream ! — but I looked at my watch, and saw it was seven, 
and finding Arthur (my husband) was not in the room, I concluded 
(rightly) that he must have gone out on the lake for an early sail, 
as it was so fine. 

I then fell asleep. At breakfast (half-past nine), Arthur came in 
rather late, and I noticed he rather purposely sat farther away from 
me than usual, and every now and then put his pocket-handkerchief 
furtively up to his lip, in the very way I had done. I said, ' Arthur, 
why are you doing that? ' and added a little anxiously, ' I know you 
have hurt yourself! but I'll tell you why afterwards.' He said, 
1 Well, when I was sailing, a sudden squall came, throwing the tiller 
suddenly round, and it struck me a bad blow in the mouth, under the 
upper lip, and it has been bleeding a good deal and won't stop.' I 
then said, ' Have you any idea what o'clock it was when it hap- 
pened ? ' and he answered, ' It must have been about seven.' 



SPONTANEOUS CASES 77 

I then told what had happened to me, much to his surprise, and all 
who were with us at breakfast. 

It happened here about three years ago at Brantwood. 

Joan R. Severn." 

The episode is duly authenticated, in accordance with the 
rule of the S. P. R., by concurrent testimony. (Proc. 
S. P. R., vol. ii, p. 128; also " Phantasms " L, 188.) 

Another Case 

A case of clairvoyance or distant telepathy was told me 
by my colleague Professor R. A. S. Redmayne, as having 
happened in his own experience when he was engaged in 
prospecting for mines in a remote district of South Africa 
accompanied only by a working miner from Durham. His 
account is here abbreviated : — 

So far as they could keep a record of weeks the solitary two used 
to play at some game on Sundays, instead of working, but on one 
particular Sunday the workman declined to play, saying he did not 
feel up to it, as he had just had an intimation of his mother's death, — 
that she had spoken of him in her last hours saying that she " would 
never see Albert again." 

My informant tried to chaff his assistant out of his melancholy, 
since it was a physical impossibility that they could receive recent news 
by any normal means. But he adhered to his conviction, and in ac- 
cordance with North Country tradition seemed to regard it as natural 
that he should thus know. 

Weeks afterwards complete confirmation came from England, both 
as to date and circumstance; the words of the dying woman having 
been similar to those felt at the time by her distant son. 

The occurrence made a marked impression on my in- 
formant and broke down his scepticism as to the possibility 
of these strange occurrences. 



78 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Fortunately I am able to quote confirmatory evidence of 
this narrative; for very soon after the verification Professor 
Redmayne wrote an account of it to his father, and from 
this gentleman I have received a certified copy of the 
letter : — 

Letter from Proffessor Redmayne to his Father 

" Mgagane, nr. Newcastle, Natal, 
21st Nov. 1891 

" I have a curious and startling thing to tell you : — About 6 weeks 
ago, Tonks said to me one morning, ' My mother is dead, Sir. I 
saw her early this morning lying dead in bed and the relatives stand- 
ing round the bed; she said she would never see me again before she 
died.' I laughed at him and ridiculed the matter, and he seemed to 
forget it, and we thought (no) more of it, but Tonks asked me to 
note the date which I did not do. Last Wednesday, however, Tonks 
received a letter from his wife telling him that his mother was dead 
and had been buried a week, that she died early one Sunday morning 
about six weeks since and in her sleep; but before she fell asleep she 
said she would never see ' Albert ' again. About a fortnight since 
I told some people what Tonks had told me, giving it as an instance 
of the superstitiousness of the Durham pitmen, and they were startled 
when, the other day, I told them the dream had come true. I will 
never laugh at anything like this again." 

The above is an extract from a letter from my son R. A. S. Red- 
mayne written from Mgagane, Natal S. A., and dated November 21st 
[189 1.] John M. Redmayne. 

August ist, 1902 
Harewood, Gateshead 

Professor Redmayne has also been good enough to get 
a certificate from the workman concerned, in the form of 
a copy of the main portion of the above letter, with the 
following note appended: — 



SPONTANEOUS CASES 79 

" The above extract correctly relates what occurred to me whilst 
living in Natal with Mr. Redmayne. 

Signed Albert Tonks 
Date August 21st , 190 1 

Witness to above Signature N. B. Paddon 

Seaton Delaval " 



Garibaldi's dream of his mother at Nice, when 
he was in mid-Pacific, is a historical instance of 
the same kind (G. M. Trevelyan. Garibaldi and 
the Thousand, p. 18.) 



CHAPTER VI 

APPLIED TELEPATHY 

An Example of the Influence of Modern Thought 
on Ancient Superstitions 

IT is being made clear, I hope, how the fact of thought- 
transference — especially of the unconscious or sub- 
liminal variety — enables us to admit the possibility of 
the truth of a large number of occurrences which previously 
we should have been liable to stigmatise as impossible and 
absurd. For in truth not only apparitions of the dying and 
phantasms of the living may tentatively and hypothetically 
be thus explained, but a number of other phenomena seem 
likely gradually to fall into their place in an orderly and 
intelligible Universe when submitted to this rationalising 
treatment. I do not say that its success is universal. I 
hold that it may be pressed too far; there are some things 
which even the greatest extension of it will not explain. 
Nevertheless when we have a clue we are bound to follow 
it up to the utmost before abandoning it, and we will there- 
fore enter upon a consideration of as many phenomena as at 
this stage we can see any chance of beginning rationally to 
understand. So let us contemplate the subject as reasonably 
and physically as we can. 

By thought-transference I mean a possible communication 
between mind and mind, by means other than any of the 
known organs of sense : what I may call a sympathetic con- 

80 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 8 1 

nexion between mind and mind; using the term mind in a 
vague and popular sense, without strict definition. And as 
to the meaning of sympathetic connexion, — let us take some 
examples : — 

A pair of iron levers, one on the ground, the other some 
hundred yards away on a post, are often seen to be sympa- 
thetically connected; for when a railway official hauls one 
of them through a certain angle the distant lever or 
semaphore-arm revolves through a similar angle. The dis- 
turbance has travelled from one to the other through a 
very obvious medium of communication — viz., an iron 
wire or rope. 

A reader unacquainted with physics may think " trans- 
mission " in this case a misnomer, since he may think the 
connexion is instantaneous — but it is not. The connexion 
is due to a pulse which travels at a perfectly definite and 
measured pace — approximately three miles per second. 

The pulling of a knob, followed by the ringing of a bell, 
is a similar process, and the transmission of the impulse 
in either of these cases is commonly considered simple and 
mechanical. It is not so simple as we think; for concerning 
cohesion we are exceedingly ignorant, and why one end of a 
stick moves when the other end is touched no one at present 
is able clearly to tell us. 

Consider, now, a couple of tuning forks, or precisely 
similiar musical instruments, isolated from each other and 
from other bodies, — suspended in air, let us say. Sound 
one of them and the other responds — i. e., begins to emit 
the same note. This is known in acoustics as sympathetic 
resonance ; and again a disturbance has travelled through the 
medium from one to the other. The medium in this case 
is intangible, but quite familiar, viz., atmospheric air. 

Next, suspend a couple of magnets, alike in all respects; 



82 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

pivoted, let us say, on points at some distance from each 
other: Touch one of the magnets and set it swinging, — 
the other begins to swing slightly, too. Once more, a dis- 
turbance has travelled from one to the other, but the medium 
in this case is by no means obvious. It is nothing solid, 
liquid, or gaseous; that much is certain. Whether it is 
material or not depends partly on what we mean by 
" material " — partly requires more knowledge before a satis- 
factory answer can be given. We do, however, know some- 
thing of the medium operative in this case, and we call it 
the Ether — the Ether of Space. 

In these cases the intensity of the response varies rapidly 
with distance, and at a sufficiently great distance the response 
would be imperceptible. 

This may be hastily set down as a natural consequence 
of a physical medium of communication, and a physical or 
mechanical disturbance ; but it is not quite so. 

Consider a couple of telephones connected properly by 
wires. They are sympathetic, and if one is tapped the other 
receives a shock. Speaking popularly, whatever is said to 
one is repeated by the other, and distance is practically un- 
important; at any rate, there is no simple law of inverse 
square, or any such kind of law; there is a definite channel 
for the disturbance between the two. 

The real medium of communication, I may say paren- 
thetically, is still the ether. 

Once more, take a mirror, pivoted on an axle, and capable 
of slight motion. At a distance let there be a suitable re- 
ceiving instrument, say a drum of photographic paper and 
a lens. If the sun is shining on the mirror, and everything 
properly arranged, a line may be drawn by it on the paper 
miles way, and every tilt given to the mirror shall be re- 
produced as a kink in the line. And this may go on over 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 83 

great distances; no wire, or anything else commonly called 
" material " connecting the two stations, nothing but a beam 
of sunlight, a peculiar state of the ether. 

So far we have been dealing with mere physics. Now 
poach a little on the ground of physiology. Take two brains, 
as like as possible, say belonging to two similar animals; 
place them a certain distance apart, with no known or obvi- 
ous means of communication, and see if there is any sympa- 
thetic link between them. Apply a stimulus to one, and ob- 
serve whether the other in any way responds? To make 
the experiment conveniently, it is best to avail oneself of 
the entire animal, and not of its brain alone. It is then 
easy to stimulate one of the brains through any of the 
creature's peripheral sense organs, and it may be possible 
to detect whatever effect is excited in the other brain by 
some motor impulse, some muscular movement of the cor- 
responding animal. 

So far as I know the experiment has hitherto been 
principally tried on man. This has certain advantages and 
certain disadvantages. The main advantage is that the 
motor result of intelligent speech is more definite and in- 
structive than mere pawings and gropings or twitchings. 
The main disadvantage is that the liability to conscious de- 
ception and fraud becomes serious, much more serious than 
it is with a less cunning animal. 

Of course it by no means follows that the experiment will 
succeed with a lower animal because it succeeds with man; 
but I am not aware of its having been tried at present ex- 
cept with man. 

One mode of trying the experiment would be to pinch or 
hurt one individual and see if the other can feel any pain. 
If he does feel anything he will probably twitch and rub, 
or he may become vocal with displeasure. There are two 



84 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

varieties of the experiment: First, with some manifest link 
or possible channel, as, for instance, where two individuals 
hold hands through a stuff ed-up hole in a partition-wall; 
and, second, with no such obvious medium, as when they 
are at a distance from one another. 

Instead of simple pain in any part of the skin, one may 
stimulate the brain otherwise, by exciting some special sense 
organ; for instance, those of taste or smell. Apply nauseous 
or pleasant materials to the palate of one individual and get 
the receptive person to describe the substance which the 
other is tasting. 

Experiments of this kind are mentioned above, and they 
have had a fair measure of positive result. But I am not 
asking for credence concerning specific facts at present. A 
serious amount of study is necessary before one is in a posi- 
tion to criticise any statement of fact. What I am concerned 
to show is that such experiments are not, on the face of 
them, absurd; that they are experiments which ought to be 
made; and that any result actually obtained, if definite and 
clear, ought to be gradually and cautiously accepted, whether 
it be positive or negative. 

So far I have supposed the stimulus to be applied to the 
nerves of touch, or more generally the skin nerves, and to 
the taste nerves ; but we may apply a stimulus equally well 
to the nerves of hearing, or of smelling, or of seeing. An 
experiment with a sound or a smell stimulus, however, is 
manifestly not very crucial unless the intervening distance 
between A and B is excessive; but a sight stimulus can be 
readily confined within narrow limits of space. Thus, a 
picture can be held up in front of the eyes of A, and B can 
be asked if he sees anything; and if he does, he can be told 
either to describe it or to draw it. 

If the picture or diagram thus shown to A is one that has 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 85 

only just been drawn by the responsible experimenter himself; 
if it is one that has no simple name that can be signalled; if 
A is not allowed to touch B, or to move during the course 
of the experiment, and has never seen the picture before; if, 
by precaution of screening, rays from the picture can be posi- 
tively asserted never to have entered the eyes of B ; and if, 
nevertheless, B describes himself as " seeing " it, however 
dimly, and is able to draw it, in dead silence on the part of 
all concerned; then, I say, the experiment would be a good 
one. 

But not yet would it be conclusive. We must consider 
who A and B are. 

If they are a pair of persons who go about together, and 
make money out of the exhibition; if they are in any sense 
a brace of professionals accustomed to act together, I deny 
that anything is solidly proved by such an experiment; for 
cunning is by no means an improbable hypothesis. 

Cunning takes such a variety of forms that it is tedious 
to discuss them; it is best to eliminate it altogether. That 
can be done by using unassorted individuals in unaccustomed 
rooms. True, the experiment may thus become much more 
difficult, if not indeed quite impossible. Two entirely 
different tuning forks will not respond. Two strangers 
are not usually sympathetic, in the ordinary sense of that 
word; perhaps we ought not to expect a response. Never- 
theless, the experiment must be made; and if B is found able 
to respond, not only to A x , but also A 2 , A 3 , and other com- 
plete strangers, under the conditions already briefly men- 
tioned, the experiment may be regarded as satisfactory. I 
am prepared to assert that such satisfactory experiments 
have been made. 

But the power of response in this way to the uninteresting 
impression of strangers does not appear to be a common 



86 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

faculty. The number of persons who can act efficiently as 
B is apparently very limited. But I do not make this asser- 
tion with any confidence, for so few people have as yet been 
seriously tried. It is most likely a question of degree. All 
shades of responsiveness may exist, from nearly o to some- 
thing considerable. 

More experiments are wanted. They are not difficult to 
try, and sufficient variety may be introduced to prevent the 
observations from being too deplorably dull. They are 
I confess rather dull. 

Before considering them satisfactory or publishing them 
it would be well to call in the assistance of a trained ob- 
server, who may be able to suggest further precautions; but 
at first it is probably well to choose fairly easy conditions. 

Relations are probably more likely to succeed than are 
strangers; persons who feel a sympathy with each other, 
who are accustomed to imagine they know what the other is 
thinking of, or to say things simultaneously, and such like 
vague traditions as are common in most families: such in- 
dividuals as these would naturally be the most likely ones 
to begin with, until experiment shows otherwise. The A 
power seems common enough; the B power, so far as I 
know, is rather rare — at least to a prominent extent. 

It is customary to call A the agent and B the percipient, 
but there may be some objection to these names. 

The name agent suggests activity; and it is a distinct 
question whether any conscious activity is necessary. Sender 
and receiver are terms that might be used, but they labour 
under similar and perhaps worse objections. For the 
present let us simply use the terms A and B, which involve 
no hypothesis whatever. 

A may be likened to the sending microphone or trans- 
mitter; B to the receiving telephone. 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 87 

A to the sounded fork or quivering magnet, B to the re- 
sponsive one. 

A to the flashing mirror, B to the sensitive sheet. 

But observe that in all the cases hitherto mentioned a 
third person is mentioned too, the experimenter, C. A and 
B are regarded as mere tools, instruments, apparatus, for 
C to make his experiments with. 

Both are passive till C comes and excites the nerve of A, 
either by pinching him, or by putting things in his mouth, 
or by showing him diagrams or objects; and B is then sup- 
posed to respond to A. It may be objected that he is really 
responding to C all the time. Yes, indeed, that may some- 
times be so, and it is a distinct possibility to remember. If 
something that C is unconsciously looking at is described by 
B, instead of the object which is set in front of A, the ex- 
periment will seem a failure. There are many such possi- 
bilities to bear in mind in so novel a region of research. 

But now I want to go on and point out that C is not 
essential. He probably is not an assistance at all, very 
likely he is an obstruction even if he is a serious and well- 
intentioned being. But if D. E. F are present too as ir- 
responsible spectators, talking or fidgetting, or even sitting 
still and thinking, the conditions are bad. One can never 
be sure what F is doing, he may be simply playing the fool. 
An experiment conducted in front of a large audience is 
scientifically useless. 

Whenever I use the term thought-transference I never 
mean anything like public performances, whether by genuine 
persons or impostors. The human race is so constituted that 
such performances have their value — they incite others to 
try experiments ; but in themselves, and speaking scientifically, 
public performances are useless, and except when of an ex- 
ceptionally high order — as they were in the case of the 



88 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Zancigs — they often tend to obscure a phenomenon by 
covering it with semi-legitimate contempt. 

I fear that some hypnotic exhibitions are worse than use- 
less ; in so far as they are conducted, not to advance science, 
but to exhibit some well known fact again and again, not 
even to students, but to an idle gaping crowd. 

To return, however, to A and B : let us suppose them left 
alone, not stimulated by any third person ; it is quite possible 
for A to combine the functions of C with his own functions, 
and to stimulate himself. He may look at a picture or a 
playing card, or he may taste a substance, or he may, if he 
can, simply think of a number, or a scene, or an event, and, 
so to speak, keep it vividly in his mind. It may happen 
that B will be able to describe the scene of which A is think- 
ing, sometimes almost correctly, sometimes with a large ad- 
mixture of error, or at least of dimness. 

The experiment is virtually the same as those above men- 
tioned, and may be made quite a good one; the only weak 
part is that, under the circumstances, everything depends on 
the testimony of A, and A is not always believed. 

This is, after all, a disability which he shares with C; and, 
at any rate, he is able to convince himself by such experi- 
ments, provided they are successful. 

But now go a step further. Let A and B be not thinking 
of experimenting at all. Let them be at a distance from 
one another, and going about their ordinary vocations, in- 
cluding somnolence and the other passive as well as active 
occupations of the twenty-four hours. Let us, however, 
not suppose them strangers, but relatives or intimate friends. 
Now let something vividly excite A; let him fall down a 
cliff, or be run over by a horse, or fall into a river; or let 
him be taken violently ill, or be subject to some strong emo- 
tion; or fct him be at the point of death. 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 89 

Is is not conceivable that if any such sympathetic con- 
nexion between individuals as I have been postulating exists, 
— if a paltry stimulus supplied by a third person is capable 
in the slightest degree of conveying itself from one in- 
dividual to another, — is it not conceivable or even probable 
that a violent stimulus, such as we have supposed A to re- 
ceive, may be able to induce in B, even though inattentive 
and otherwise occupied, some dim echo, reverberation, 
response, and cause him to be more or less aware that A 
is suffering or perturbed. If B is busy, self-absorbed, 
actively engaged, he may notice nothing. If he happen to 
be quiescent, vacant, moody, or half or wholly asleep, he may 
realise and be conscious of something. He may perhaps 
only feel a vague sense of depression in general ; or he may 
feel the depression and associate it definitely with A; or he 
may be more distinctly aware of what is happening, and 
call out that A has had a fall, or an accident, or is being 
drowned, or is ill; or he may have a specially vivid dream 
which will trouble him long after he wakes, and may be told 
to other persons, and written down; or he may think he 
hears A's voice; or, lastly, he may conjure up an image of 
A so vividly before his " mind's eye " that he may be able 
to persuade himself and others that he has seen his appari- 
tion : — sometimes a mere purposeless phantom, sometimes 
in a " setting " of a sort of vision or picture of an event not 
unlike what is at the time elsewhere really happening. 

The Society for Psychical Research have, with splendid 
perseverance and diligence, undertaken and carried forward 
the thankless labour of receiving and sifting a great mass of 
testimony to phenomena such as I have hinted at. They 
have published some of them in two large volumes, called 
Phantasms of the Living. Fresh evidence comes in every 
month. The evidence is so cumulative, and some of it is 



9 o THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

so well established, as to bear down the dead wall of sceptic- 
ism in all those who have submitted to the drudgery of a 
study of the material. The evidence induces belief. It is 
not yet copious enough to lead to a valid induction. 

I cannot testify to these facts as I can to the simple ex- 
periments where I have acted the part of C. Evidence for 
spontaneous or involuntary thought-transference must obvi- 
ously depend on statements received from A and from B, 
as well as from other persons, some in the neighbourhood 
of A, others in the neighbourhood of B, together with con- 
temporary newspaper reports, Times' obituaries, and other 
past documents relating to matters of fact, which are avail- 
able for scrutiny, and may be regarded as trustworthy. 

I am prepared, however, to confess that the weight of 
testimony is sufficient to satisfy my own mind that such things 
do undoubtedly occur; that the distance between England 
and India is no barrier to the sympathetic communication 
of intelligence in some way of which we are at present igno- 
rant; that, just as a signalling key in London causes a 
telegraphic instrument to respond instantaneously in Te- 
heran, — which is an every-day occurrence, — so the danger 
or death of a distant child, or brother, or husband, may be 
signalled, without wire or telegraph clerk, to the heart of a 
human being fitted to be the recipient of such a message. 

We call the process telepathy — sympathy at a distance; 
we do not understand it. What is the medium of com- 
munication? Is it through the air, like the tuning forks; 
or through the ether, like the magnets; or is it something 
non-physical, and exclusively psychical? No one as yet can 
tell you. We must know far more about it before we can 
answer that question, — perhaps before we can be sure 
whether the question has a meaning or not. 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 91 

Undoubtedly, the scientific attitude, after being forced to 
admit the fact, is to assume a physical medium, and to dis- 
cover it and its processes if possible. When the attempt 
has failed, it will be time enough to enter upon fresh 
hypotheses. 

Meanwhile, plainly, telepathy strikes us as a spontaneous 
occurrence of that intercommunication between mind and 
mind (or brain and brain), which for want of a better term 
we at present style thought-transference. We may be 
wrong in thus regarding it, but as scientific men that is how 
we are bound to regard it unless forced by the weight of 
evidence into some apparently less tenable position. 

The opinion is strengthened by the fact that the spontane- 
ously occurring impressions can be artificially and experi- 
mentally imitated by conscious attempts to produce them. 
Individuals are known who can by an effort of will excite 
the brain of another person at a moderate distance, — say 
in another part of the same town, or even in some distant 
place, — so that this second person imagines that he hears a 
call or sees a face. 

These are called experimental apparitions, and appear 
will established. These experiments also want repeating. 
They require care, obviously; but they are very valuable 
pieces of evidence, and must contribute immensely to ex- 
perimental psychology. 

What now is the meaning of this unexpected sympathetic 
resonance, this syntonic reverberation between minds? Is 
it conceivably the germ of a new sense, as it were, — some- 
thing which the human race is, in the progress of evolution, 
destined to receive in fuller measure? Or is it the relic of a 
faculty possessed by our animal ancestry before speech was? 

I have no wish to intrude speculations upon you, and I 



92 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

cannot answer these questions except in terms of speculation. 
I wish to assert nothing but what I believe to be solid and 
verifiable facts. 

Let me, however, point out that the intercommunion of 
minds, the exciting in the brain of B a thought possessed by 

A, is after all a very ordinary and well known process. We 
have a quantity of well-arranged mechanism to render it 
possible. The human race has advanced far beyond the 
animal in the development of this mechanism; and civilised 
man has advanced beyond savages. Conceivably, by thus 
developing the mechanism, we may have begun to lose the 
spontaneous and really simpler form of the power; but the 
power, with mechanism, conspicuously exists. 

I whisper a secret to A, and a short time afterwards I 
find that B is perfectly aware of it. It sometimes happens 
so. It has probably happened in what we are accustomed 
to consider a very commonplace fashion; A has told him. 
When you come to analyse the process, however, it is not 
really at all simple. I will not go into tedious details; but 
when you remeber that what conveyed the thought was the 
impalpable compressions and dilatations of a gas, and that 
in the process of transmission it existed for a finite space of 
time in this intermediate and curiously mechanical condition, 
you may realise something of puzzlement in the process. I 
am not sure but that we ought to consider some direct 
sympathy between two minds, without this mechanical pro- 
cess, as really a more simple and direct mode of conveying an 
idea. However, all dualism is repugnant when pressed far 
enough, and I do not now wish to insist on any real and es- 
sential antithesis between mind and matter, between idea and 
process. Pass on to another illustration. 

Tell a secret to A, in New Zealand, and discover that 

B, in St. Petersburg, is before long aware of it, neither 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 93 

having travelled. How can that happen? That is not 
possible to a savage; it would seem to him mysterious. It 
is mysterious in reality. The idea existed for a time in the 
form of black scrawls on a bit of paper, which travelled be- 
tween the two places. A transfer of material occurred, not 
an aerial vibration; the piece of paper held in front of B's 
eyes excited in him the idea or knowledge of fact which 
you had communicated to A. 

Not even a material transfer is necessary however; no 
matter flows along a telegraph wire, and the air is undis- 
turbed by an electric current, but a thought-transference 
through the etherial medium (with, or indeed without, the 
help of a telegraph or telephone wire) is an accomplished 
fact, though it would have puzzled our ancestors of last 
century. And yet it is not really new, it is only the distance 
and perfection of it that is new. We all possess an etherial 
receiving instrument, in our organ of vision. The old 
semaphore system of signalling, as well as the heliograph 
method, is really a utilisation of the ether for this kind of 
thought-transference. Much information, sometimes of 
momentous character, may be conveyed by a wink or nod ; or 
even by a look. There also are messages sent through the 
ether. The eye is affected by disturbances arriving through 
the ether, and by those alone. 

Now, then, I say, shut the eyes, stop the ears, transmit 
no material substance, interpose distance sufficient to stop 
all pushing and pulling. Can thought or ideas still be trans- 
mitted? Experiment answers that they can. But what the 
medium is, and how the process occurs, it remains for further 
investigation to ascertain. 

We reduced our initial three individuals to two; we can 
reduce the two to one. It is possible for the A and B func- 
tions to be apparently combined in one individual. Some 



94 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

practice seems necessary for this, and it is a curious state of 
things. It seems assisted by staring at an object such as a 
glass globe or crystal — - a slight amount of self-hypnotism 
probably. Then you see visions and receive impressions, 
or sometimes your hand works unconsciously, as if one part 
of your brain was signalling to another part, and your own 
identity was dormant or complexed for a time. But in 
these cases of so-called automatic writing, crystal vision, 
trance-utterance, clairvoyance, and the like, are we quite sure 
whether it is a case of A and B at all; and, if so, whether 
the subject before us is really acting as both? I am not 
sure; I distinctly doubt it in some cases. It is possible that 
the clairvoyant is responding to some unknown world-mind 
of which he forms a part: that the real agent is neither 
himself nor any other living person. This possibility must 
not be ignored in ordinary cases of apparent thought-trans- 
ference, too. 

Well, now take a further step. Suppose I discover a 
piece of paper with scrawls on it. I may guess they are 
intended for something, but as they are to me illegible 
hieroglyphics, I carry it to one person after another, and 
get them to look at it; but it excites in them no response. 
They perceive little more than a savage would perceive. 
But not so with all of them. One man to whom I show it 
has the perceptive faculty, so to speak; he becomes wildly 
excited; he begins to sing; he rushes for an arrangement of 
wood and catgut, and fills the air with vibrations. Even 
the others can now faintly appreciate the meaning. The 
piece of paper was a lost manuscript of Beethoven! 

What sort of thought-transference is that? Where is the 
A to whom the ideas originally occurred? He has been 
dead for years; his fossilised thought has lain dormant in 
matter; but it only wanted a sympathetic and educated mind 



APPLIED TELEPATHY 95 

to perceive it, to revive it, and to make it the property of 
the world. Idea, do I call it? but it is not only idea, there 
may be a world of emotion, too, thus stored up in matter, 
ready to be released as by a detent. Action of mind on mat- 
ter, reaction of matter on mind — are these things, after 
all, commonplaces too? 

If so what is not possible? 

Here is a room where a tragedy occurred, where the 
human spirit was strung to intensest anguish. Is there any 
trace of that agony present still and able to be appreciated 
by an attuned or receptive mind? I assert nothing, except 
that it is not inconceivable. If it happen, it may take many 
forms; vague disquiet perhaps, or imaginary sounds or 
vague visions, or perhaps a dream or picture of the event 
as it occurred. Understand I do not regard the evidence for 
these things as so conclusive as for some of the other phe- 
nomena I have dealt with, but the belief in such facts may 
be forced upon us, and you perceive that the garment of su- 
perstition is already dropping from them. They will take 
their place, if true, in an orderly universe, along with other 
not wholly unallied and already well known occurrences. 

Relics again: is it credible that a relic, a lock of hair, an 
old garment, retains any trace of a deceased friend — re- 
tains any portion of his personality. Does not an old letter? 
Does not a painting? An " old master " we call it. Aye, 
there may be much of the personality of the old master thus 
preserved. Is not the emotion felt on looking at it a kind 
of thought-transference from, the departed? A painting 
differs from a piece of music in that it is constantly incarnate, 
so to speak. It is there for all to see, for some to under- 
stand. The music requires incarnation, it can be " per- 
formed " as we say, and then it can be appreciated. But in 
no case without the attuned and thoughtful mind; and so 



96 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

these things are, in a sense, thought-transference, but de- 
ferred thought-transference. They may be likened to tele- 
pathy not only reaching over tracts of space but deferred 
through epochs of time. 1 

Think over these great things and be not unduly sceptical 
about little things. An attitude of keen and critical inquiry 
must continually be maintained, and in that sense any amount 
of scepticism is not only legitimate but necessary. The kind 
of scepticism I deprecate is not that which sternly questions 
and rigourously probes, it is rather that which confidently 
asserts and dogmatically denies; but this kind is not true 
scepticism, in the proper sense of the word, for it deters 
inquiry and forbids inspection. It is too positive concern- 
ing the boundaries of knowledge and the line where supersti- 
tion begins. 

Phantasms and dreams of ghosts, crystal gazing, premoni- 
tions, and clairvoyance: the region of superstition? Yes, 
hitherto, but possibly also the region of fact. As taxes on 
credulity they are trifles compared to things with which we 
are already familiar; only too familiar, for our familiarity 
has made us stupidly and inanely inappreciative of them. 

The whole of our knowledge and existence is shrouded in 
mystery: the commonplace is itself full of marvel, and the 
business of science is to overcome the forces of superstition 
by enlisting them in the service of genuine knowledge. And 
when this is done I do not doubt that some of these forces 
will be found auxiliary to the sacred cause of religion itself. 

1 They are not technical telepathy, as defined, of course, because they 
occur through accustomed ways and processes. Technical telepathy is the 
attainment of the same result through unaccustomed ways and processes. 



SECTION III 

SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY AND 
CLAIRVOYANCE 



CHAPTER VII 

APPARITIONS CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF 
TELEPATHY 

THE fact of telepathy having been experimentally 
established by a larger number of experiments con- 
ducted by different people, it remains to consider 
more fully its bearing and significance. 

Telepathy means the apparently direct action of one mind 
on another by means unknown to science. That a thought 
or image or impression or emotion in the mind of one person 
can arouse a similar impression in the mind of another per- 
son sufficiently sympathetic and sufficiently at leisure to at- 
tend and record the impression, is now proved. But the 
mechanism whereby it is done, or even if there is anything 
that can be likened to physical mechanism at all, is still un- 
known. The appearance is as if it were a direct action of 
mind on mind, or of brain on brain, irrespective of the usual 
nerves and muscles and organs of sense. 

This fact alone — once admitted, after having run the 
traditional gauntlet of scepticism — serves to explain, at 
least in a le and tentative manner, a number of puz- 

zling phenomena ; notably it furnishes a plausible key to the 
phenomena of apparitions and hallucinations of every kind, 
whether of sight or oi hearing or of touch. It is of especial 
value in reducing the rudimentary difficulty about the clothes 
ies of so-called " ghosts " to absurdity; since of 
course a mental impression would represent a person under 

99 



ioo SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

something like customary, though it may be unexpected, sur- 
roundings, — just as happens in an ordinary dream. 

The word " hallucination " applied to phantasmal ap- 
pearances in general has been objected to in connexion with 
some of these apparitions; as if it were intended to imply 

— as it is often mistakenly assumed to imply — that there 
is no objective reality underlying the apparition whatever. 
It is, however, fully admitted that some hallucinations may 
be and indeed are veridical (i.e., truth-telling) ; inasmuch as 
they correspond with some real event, some strong emotion, 

— due perhaps to an accident or to the illness or decease of 
the distant and visualised person. They therefore do cor- 
respond with some objective reality, just as the image in a 
looking-glass corresponds with and is veridical evidence of 
some objective reality; but as to any substantiality about a 
phantasm — that must be regarded as demanding further 
investigation. Hypothetically it may differ in different 
cases; and in no case can it be safe to assume, without 
special evidence, that it has anything more than a psycholog- 
ical basis. 

The question of photography applied to visible phantasms, 
and to an invisible variety said to be perceived by clairvoy- 
ants, is still an open one — at any rate no photographic evi- 
dence has yet appeared conclusive to me. If successful, 
photography could prove that the impression was not only 
a mental one, but that the ether of space had been definitely 
affected in a certain way also, so that the impression had 
probably become received by the optical apparatus of the 
eye, and had been transmitted in the usual way to the brain. 
It would not prove substantiality; since of course it is per- 
fectly easy to photograph the virtual image formed by a 
looking-glass. Still, genuine photography would indicate a 
step in advance of telepathy: it would establish one variety 



APPARITIONS 101 

of what are called " physical phenomena." There is, in 
truth, a vast amount of evidence for physical phenomena of 
this technically supernormal kind; but they have not yet 
made good their claim to clear and positive acceptance in 
the way that telepathy has done. 

But we are at present not attending to physical phenomena. 
We need not assume that an apparition has any objective or 
physical reality. It may be only an impression on the mind 
of a percipient, analogous to the image or impression caused 
in one person while another is endeavouring to transfer 
the image of an object. That which experimentally is found 
to occur of conscious purpose we think may sometimes occur 
unconsciously too. We are not sure indeed that the con- 
sciousness or will power of the agent has anything to do 
with it; the transfer is effected we know not how, and it 
may be wholly an affair of the subconsciousness. If so, a 
strong emotion even in a distant person may produce an 
echo or reverberation in the mind of a relative or even a 
sympathetic stranger, without the agent being in the least 
conscious of what is happening, and without the percipient 
in the least understanding the process. He may think that 
the impression in the mind is real, and may only be unde- 
ceived by trying to touch it, or he may perceive that it is 
no more real than the image in a looking-glass, or not so 
real as that and yet may feel certain that it corresponds to 
some sort of psychical reality, somewhere. 

In that case the impression is called veridical or truth- 
telling, because it does convey real information, though it 
does so in a phantasmal or unreal manner. Hallucinations 
need not necessarily be unreal or phantasmal in every case : 
that is a matter for further investigation, but it does as- 
suredly clear the ground to treat them as such in the first 
instance. 



102 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

Phantasms 

Examples of apparitions seen by relatives at or very near 
to the epoch of death are so common that it is hardly worth 
while to quote any here. The publications of the Society 
for Psychical Research and the book called Phantasms of 
the Living are full of them; and in most assemblages it 
will be found that a few of those present are aware of cases 
of this kind in their own family history. 

Part of the scepticism which has surrounded the subject 
has been undoubtedly due to the difficult notions which are 
rendered necessary if those apparitions are to be supposed 
objective realities. Even supposing a human being could 
thus appear, the apparition of his clothes and simplest acces- 
sories must thus become puzzling. Sometimes such figures 
are seen accompanied by animals, sometimes with their sur- 
roundings lightly sketched in as it were, — as for instance 
part of a ship in the case of a sailor. All these difficulties 
sink into non-existence directly it is apprehended that the 
vision is a mental impression produced by a psychical agency, 
veridical in the sense of corresponding to reality more or 
less closely, but subjective in the sense of there being no 
actual bodily presence. This is the kind of rationalising 
theory on which the Society for Psychical Research started 
its existence : it must have been the hope of similarly detect- 
ing an element of common sense running through a great 
variety of popular legend that conferred on its pioneers the 
motive power necessary. Anyhow that was their adopted 
theory, and accordingly all such apparitions were in the first 
instance supposed to be due to telepathy from the dying 
person and were called Phantasms of the Living. 

The following is an extract from a Report of one of the 
Committees : — There is strong testimony that clairvoyants 



APPARITIONS 103 

have witnessed and described trivial incidents in which they 
had no special interest, and even scenes in which the actors, 
though actual persons, were complete strangers to them; 
and such cases seem properly assimilated to those where 
they describe mere places and objects, the idea of which 
can hardly be supposed to be impressed on them by any 
personality at all. Once more, apparitions at death, though 
the fact of death sufficiently implies excitement or disturb- 
ance in one mind, have often been witnessed, not only by 
relatives or friends, in a normal state but interested in the 
event — a case above considered — but by other observers 
who had no personal interest in the matter. 

To secure testimony on these topics we have had to de- 
pend on the co-operation of the public, and we have sought 
far and wide for trustworthy testimony, which we have 
tested in a stringent manner, never resting satisfied until by 
inquiry and pertinacious cross-examination, with an examina- 
tion of contemporary records of various kinds, we have 
made as sure as is humanly possibly that our witnesses were 
neither lying nor drawing unduly on their imagination, but 
that the event happened pretty much as they have narrated 
or at the time recorded by them. 

" Phantasms of the Dying " might be a better name for 
these very numerous cases of apparition or veridical halluci- 
nation. Whatever the cause, the fact of their existence has 
been thoroughly established; there is a concordance far be- 
yond chance between apparitions which convey the impres- 
sion of the unexpected death or illness of a distant person, 
and the actual fact; — the intelligence being, in this form im- 
pressed on a percipient at a distance, by some apparently 
unconscious mental activity, and by means at present un- 
known. 

Abbreviated Examples 

As an instance of a vision with appropriate accessories I might 
take a case reported more fully in the Proceedings of the Society for 



io 4 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

Psychical Research, vol. iii., page 97 — the case of a favourite and 
devoted Scottish workman who appeared to his employer in what is 
described as an extraordinarily vivid dream in which the workman 
appeared with a face of " indescribable bluish pale colour and on his 
forehead spots like blots of sweat," and earnestly said several times 
that he had not done the thing which he was accused of doing. 
When asked what this was, he replied impressively " Ye'll sune ken." 
Almost immediately afterwards the news of this man's suicide arrived. 
But the employer felt assured on the strength of his vision that, 
though dead, the man had not committed suicide; and said so. Be- 
fore long it turned out that his assurance was correct, for the work- 
man had drunk from a bottle containing nitric acid by accident. The 
employer moreover subsequently ascertained that the symptoms ex- 
hibited by the phantasmal appearance were such as are appropriate 
to poisoning by this liquid. 

Another case of vision with more detailed accessories is 
in vol. vii., page 33, communicated by Dr. Hodgson, and 
may be abbreviated thus: — 

Mrs. Paquet on the morning of October 24th, 1889, after her 
husband had gone to work and the children to school, feeling gloomy, 
was making some tea for herself, when she saw a vision of her brother 
Edmund Dunn standing only a few feet away; and her report 
continues : — 

" The apparition stood with back toward me, or rather, partially 
so, and was in the act of falling forward — away from me — seem- 
ingly impelled by two ropes or a loop of rope drawing against his 
legs. The vision lasted but a moment, disappearing over a low rail- 
ing or bulwark, but was very distinct. I dropped the tea, clasped 
my hands to my face, and exclaimed, " My God ! Ed. is drowned." 

" At about half-past ten a.m. my husband received a telegram from 
Chicago announcing the drowning of my brother. When he arrived 
home, he said to me, ' Ed. is sick in hospital at Chicago ; I have just 
received a telegram/ to which I replied ' Ed. is drowned ; I saw him 
go overboard.' I then gave him a minute description of what I had 



APPARITIONS 105 

seen. I stated that my brother, as I saw him, was bareheaded, had 
on a heavy, blue sailor's shirt, no coat, and that he went over the rail 
or bulwark. I noticed that his pants' legs were rolled up enough to 
show the white lining inside. I also described the appearance of the 
boat at the point where my brother went overboard. 

"I am not nervous, and neither before nor since have I had any 
experience in the least degree similar to that above related. 

" My brother was not subject to fainting or vertigo. 

" Agnes Paquet." 

Mr. Paquet's Statement 

"At about 10.30 o'clock a.m., October 24th, 1889, I received a 
telegram from Chicago, announcing the drowning of my brother-in- 
law, Edmund Dunn, at 3 o'clock that morning. I went directly 
home, and wishing to break the force of the sad news I had to convey 
to my wife, I said to her : ' Ed. is sick in hospital at Chicago ; I 
have just received a telegram.' To which she replied: 'Ed. is 
drowned; I saw him go overboard.' She then described to me the 
appearance and dress of her brother as described in her statement, 
also the appearance of the boat, etc." 

" I started at once for Chicago, and when I arrived there I found 
the appearance of that part of the vessel described by my wife to be 
exactly as she had described it, though she had never seen the vessel; 
and the crew verified my wife's description of her brother's dress, 
etc., except that they thought he had his hat on at the time of the 
accident. They said that Mr. Dunn had purchased a pair of pants 
a few days before the accident occurred, and as they were a trifle 
long, wrinkling at the knees, he had worn them rolled up, showing 
the white lining as seen by my wife." 

Statement of Accident 

"On October 24th, 1889, Edmund Dunn, brother of Mrs. Agnes 
Paquet, was serving as fireman on the tug Wolf, a small steamer 
engaged in towing vessels in Chicago harbour. At about three 
o'clock a.m., the tug fastened to a vessel, inside the piers, to tow 



106 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

her up the river. While adjusting the tow-line Mr. Dunn fell, or 
was thrown overboard by the tow-line, and drowned." 

In this case, if 3 a.m, signifies Chicago time, the vision 
must have followed the accident very closely; but it has 
gradually become clear that some of these cases do not 
coincide precisely with the epoch of death, but follow it some- 
times at so long an interval that another group has to be 
classified as " Phantasms of the Dead." (See Mrs. Sidg- 
wick's Memoir on the subject in Proceedings, vol. iii.) 

Again occasionally the hallucinations are collective, so that 
several people present see the same vision. It is possible 
to consider these as cases of contagious hallucination: and 
it is not usually necessary to suppose that the distant person 
whose image was being seen knew anything about it or was 
making any conscious effort to communicate. 

If indeed he were conscious of the attempt, still more if 
he knew of its success and reception, it would be a feature 
of greatly added interest; it would then fall into the class of 
reciprocal cases — which are rarer. 

Experimental Apparitions 

The fact that such visions can also be produced through 
the agency of living people — even in health — was proved 
by the experiments conducted by Mr. S. H. B. as recorded 
in Phantasms of the Living, vol. i., pp. 104-9, an d in Human 
Personality, vol. i., p. 293. This gentleman willed himself 
or rather his phantom to appear to two ladies, without their 
knowing of the experiment; and he succeeded in his intention. 
They both saw him simultaneously, though he did not see 
them, and his appearance was as of one in evening dress 
wandering aimlessly about their room, after the traditional 
manner of " ghosts." This experimental production of a 



APPARITIONS 107 

ghost is a particularly instructive case; and many ghostly 
appearances belong to living people, who are usually uncon- 
scious that they are producing any such effect. There ap- 
pears to be no reason why an apparition should always be 
of a deceased person. But whether every apparition is of 
this unsubstantial and purely subjective order, or whether a 
few proceed to a further degree of reality and belong to 
what are sometimes spoken of as incipient materialisation, 
I do not at this stage even discuss. It is sufficient to indicate 
that a true hypothesis does not close the door to other and 
more extended ones, if the first is found incompetent to ex- 
plain all the facts. 

For, the convenient analogy of conscious and purposed 
Thought-transference must not be pressed too far. Our 
phenomena break through any attempt to group them under 
heads of purposely transferred impression; and the words 
Telasthesia and Telepathy were introduced by Mr. Myers 
to cover all cases of impression received at a distance without 
the normal operation of the recognised sense organs. 

These general terms are found of permanent service; but 
as regards what is for the present included under them, we 
must limit and arrange our material rather with an eye to 
convenience, than with any belief that our classification will 
ultimately prove a fundamental one. No true demarcation, 
in fact, can as yet be made between one class of those ex- 
periences and another; we need the record of as many and 
as diverse phenomena as we can get, if we are to be in a posi- 
tion to deal satisfactorily with any one of them. 

The popular term " ghost " may cover a wide range of 
essentially different phenomena, and the hallucinatory but 
veridical kind of apparition which has no particular connec- 
tion with any particular place, is the best established and 
commonest variety. 



io8 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

Hauntings 

The kind of ghost associated with a place — say a room, 
— and seen by any one who happens to sleep in that room, 
provided he is fairly wakeful and not too case-hardened 
against weird influences, constitutes a difficult and at present 
somewhat unsatisfactory region of inquiry. The evidence 
for the existence of this " fixed local " kind of apparition is 
strong, but hardly conclusive; and this kind is not included 
among those called " phantasms of the living " nor among 
hallucinations due to telepathy from the injured or dying. 

The Society has not had the opportunity of investigating 
so-called haunted houses in any considerable number; and 
many of such cases — even when reported — resolve them- 
selves merely into uncanny noises such as may be accounted 
for in one of a great many different 'ways. I would not be 
understood as expressing any opinion as to the actual occur- 
rence of this class of phantom — our study of it as yet has 
been insufficient, — but of the occurrence of or visions which 
coincide fairly in time with some severe shock to the per- 
son represented, it is impossible for me to entertain a 
doubt. The evidence must certainly depend on human testi- 
mony, but immense trouble has been taken to collect such 
testimony over a wide range of persons, to sift and examine 
and test it by every means in our power, and then to record 
it in volumes accessible to the public. Those who have been 
chiefly occupied for years in this work are able to testify 
concerning it as follows : — 

We have thus accumulated a great body of testimony 
which it is impossible to overlook or to discard. These 
facts form a foundation for the beginning of knowledge 
concerning them. 

Our evidence is no shifting shadow, which it may be 



APPARITIONS 109 

left to individual taste or temperament to interpret, but 
more resembles a solid mass seen in twilight which men may 
indeed avoid stumbling over, but only by resolutely walking 
away from it. And when the savant thus deserts the field, 
the ordinary man needs to have the nature and true amount 
of the testimony far more directly brought home to him, than 
is necessary in realms already mastered by specialists to 
whose dicta he may defer. Failing this direct contact with 
the facts, the vaguely fascinated regard of the ordinary 
public is, for all scientific purposes, as futile as the savanfs 
determined avoidance. Knowledge can never grow until 
it is realised that the question " Do you believe in these 
things? " is puerile unless it has been preceded by the in- 
quiry, " What do you know about them? " 

For, in fact, this subject is at present very much in the 
position which zoology and botany occupied in the time of 
Aristotle, or nostology in the time of Hippocrates. Aristotle 
had no zoological gardens or methodical treatises to refer 
to; he was obliged to go down to the fish-market, to hear 
whatever the sailors could tell, and look at whatever they 
could bring him. This spirit of omnivorous inquiry no 
doubt exposed him to hearing much that was exaggerated or 
untrue; but plainly the science of zoology could not have 
been upbuilt without it. Diseases afford a still more strik- 
ing parallel to the phenomena of which we are in quest. 
Men of science are wont to make it an objection to this 
quest that phenomena cannot be reproduced under our own 
conditions or at our own time. The looseness of thought 
here exhibited by men ordinarily clear-headed is surely a 
striking example of the prepotence of prejudice over educa- 
tion. ^ Will the objectors assert that all aberrations of 
function and degenerations of tissue are reproducible by 
direct experiment? Can physicians secure a case of cancer 
or Addison's disease by any previous arrangement of con- 
ditions ? Our science is by no means the only one concerned 
with phenomena which are at present to a large extent irre- 
producible: all the sciences of life are still within that 
category, and all sciences whatever were in it once. 



CHAPTER VIII 

TELEPATHY FROM AN IMMATERIAL REGION 

THE phenomenon upon a consideration of which we 
shall shortly enter is that exhibited in several forms 
and known under various names, of which the 
simplest perhaps is automatic writing — that is, writing ex- 
ecuted independently of the full knowledge and conscious- 
ness of the operator — the hand acting in obedience either 
to some unconscious portion of the operator's mind, or else 
responding to some other psychical influence more or less dis- 
tinct from both his normal and his hypernormal personality. 
Sometimes it takes the form not of writing, but of uncon- 
scious speech; and occasionally the person whose hand or 
voice is being used is himself completely entranced and un- 
conscious for one or two hours together. There is evidently 
a great deal to be learned about this phenomenon, and many 
surmises are legitimate respecting it, but it is useless and 
merely ignorant to deny its occurrence. It is often quite 
clear that parts of the writings or speech so obtained do 
not represent the normal knowledge of the automatist; but 
whence the information is derived is uncertain, and probably 
in different cases the source is different. The simplest as- 
sumption, and one that covers perhaps a majority of the 
facts, is that the writer's unconscious intelligence or sub- 
liminal self — his dream or genius stratum — is at work — 
that he is in a condition of unconscious and subliminal 
lucidity, and subject to a sort of hyperesthesia. 

It has long been known that in order to achieve remark- 
no 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY in 

able results in any department of intellectual activity, the 
mind must be to some extent unaware of passing occurrences. 
To be keenly awake and " on the spot " is a highly valued 
accomplishment, and for the ordinary purposes of mundane 
affairs is a far more useful state of mind than the rather 
hazy and absorbed condition which is associated with the 
quality of mind called genius; but it is not as effective for 
brilliant achievement. 

When a poet or musician or mathematician feels himself 
inspired, his senses are — at least his commonplace and non- 
relevant attention is — dulled or half asleep ; and though 
probably some part of his brain is in a state of great activity, 
I am not aware of any experiments directed to test which 
that part is, nor whether, when in that state, any of the more 
ordinarily used portions are really dormant or no. It would 
be interesting, but difficult, to ascertain the precise physio- 
logical accompaniments of that which on a small scale is 
called a brown study, and on a larger scale a period of inspi- 
ration. 

It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the state 
is somewhat allied to the initial condition of anaesthesia — 
the somnambulic condition in which, though the automatic 
processes of the body go on with greater perfection than 
usual, the conscious or noticing aspect of the mind is latent, 
so that the things which influence the person are apparently 
no longer the ordinary events which affect his peripheral 
organs, but either something internal or else something not 
belonging to the ordinarily known physical universe at all. 

The mind is always in a receptive state, perhaps, but 
whereas the business-like wide-awake person receives impres- 
sions from every trivial detail of his physical surroundings, 
the half-asleep person seems to receive impressions from a 
different stratum altogether; higher in some instances, lower 



ii2 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

in some instances, but different always from those received 
by ordinary men in their every-day state. 

In a man of genius the state comes on of itself, and the 
results are astounding. There are found occasionally feeble 
persons, usually young, who seek to attain to the appearance 
of genius by the easy process of assuming or encouraging an 
attitude of vacancy and uselessness. There may be all grades 
of result attained while in this state, and the state itself is of 
less than no value unless it is justified by the results. 

By experiment and observation it has now been established 
that a state not altogether dissimilar to this can be induced 
by artificial means, e. g. } by drugs, by hypnosis, by crystal 
gazing, by purposed inattention; and also that a receptive 
or clairvoyant condition occurs occasionally without provo- 
cation, during sleep and during trance. All these states 
seem to some extent allied, and, as is well known, Mr. 
Myers has elaborated their relationship in his series of 
articles on the subliminal consciousness. 

Well now, the question arises, What is the source of the 
intelligence manifested during epochs of clairvoyant lucidity, 
as sometimes experienced in the hypnotic or the somnambulic 
state, or during trance, or displayed automatically? 

The most striking cases of which I am now immediately 
or mediately cognisant, are the trance state of Mrs. Piper, 
and the automatism of such writers as Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. 
Holland. Without any apparent lulling of attention at all 
I am experimentally assured of the possibility of convey^ 
ing information between one mind and another without the 
aid of ordinary sense organs; but the cases mentioned are 
especially striking and will serve to narrow the field to what 
after all may be considered at present the main points. 

Mrs. Piper in the trance state is undoubtedly (I use the 
word in the strongest sense; I have absolutely no more doubt 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 113 

on the subject than I have of my friends' ordinary knowledge 
of me and other men), — Mrs. Piper's trance personality is 
undoubtedly aware of much to which she has no kind of 
ordinarily recognised clue, and of which in her ordinary state 
she knows nothing. But how does she get this knowledge? 
She herself when in the trance state asserts. that she gets 
is by conversing with the deceased friends and relatives of 
people present. And that this is a genuine opinion of hers, 
i.e., that the process feels like that to her unconscious or sub- 
conscious mind — the part of her which used to call itself 
Phinuit and now calls itself " Rector " — I am fully prepared 
to believe. But that does not carry us very far towards a 
knowledge of what the process actually is. 

Conversation implies speaking with the mouth, — and 
when receiving or asking information she is momentarily in 
a deeper slumber, and not occupied in normal speech. At 
times, indeed, slight mutterings of one-sided questions and re- 
plies are heard, or are written, very like the mutterings of 
a person in sleep undergoing a vivid dream. 

Dream is certainly the ordinary person's nearest approach 
to the entranced condition ; and the fading of recollection as 
the conscious memory returns is also parallelled by the waking 
of Mrs. Piper out of the trance. But, instead of a nearly 
passive dream, it is more nearly allied to the somnambulic 
state ; though the activity, far from being chiefly locomotory, 
is mainly mental and only partially muscular. 

She is in a state of somnambulism in which the mind is 
more active than the body; and the activity is so different 
from her ordinary activity, she is so distinctly a different sort 
of person, that she quite appropriately calls herself by another 
name. . 

It is natural to ask, Is she still herself? But it is a ques- 
tion difficult to answer, unless " herself " be defined. It is 



ii 4 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

her mouth that is speaking, or her hand which is writing, and 
I suppose her brain and nerves are working the muscles; but 
they are not worked in the customary way, nor does the mind 
manifested thereby at all resemble her mind. Until, how- 
ever, the meaning of identity can be accurately specified, I 
find it difficult to discuss the question whether she or another 
person is really speaking. 

On this point the waking experience of Mrs. Newnham - — 
an automatic writer quoted in Phantasms of the Living, vol. 
i. p. 63 — is of assistance. In her case the hand wrote mat- 
ter not in the writer's mind and which she did not feel that 
she was writing. Her hand wrote while she was taking 
the attention of her own conscious mind away from her hand 
and letting it be guided by her subconscious or by some other 
mind. 

The instructive feature about this case was that the minds 
apparently influencing the hand were not so much those of 
dead as of living people. The advantage of this was that 
they could be catechised afterwards about their share in the 
transaction; and it then appeared that they either knew 
nothing about it or were surprised at it; for though the 
communications did not correspond to something in their 
minds, it did not represent anything of which they were 
consciously thinking, and was only a very approximate ren- 
dering of what they might be wishing to convey. They did 
not seem able to exercise control over the messages, any more 
than untrained people can control their thoughts in dreams. 
But we must not jump to the conclusion that this will always 
be the case; that the connexion is never reciprocally con- 
scious, as when two persons are talking; but it shows that at 
any rate it need not be so. Since the living communicant is 
not aware of what is being dictated, so the dead person need 
not be consciously operative; and thus conceivably the hand 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 115 

of the automatist may be influenced by minds other than his 
own, minds both living and dead (by one apparently as 
readily as by the other), but not by a conscious portion of 
the mind of any one; by the subconscious or dreamy portion, 
if by any portion at all. 

When Phinuit, then, or Mrs. Piper in the trance state, re- 
ports conversations which she has had with other minds (usu- 
ally in Phinuit's case with persons deceased) , and even when 
the voice changes and messages come apparently from those 
very people themselves, it does not follow that they them- 
selves are necessarily aware of the fact, nor need their con- 
scious mind (if they have any) be active in the process. 

The signature of an automatist's hand is equivalent to the 
assertion that Miss X., for instance, is deliberately writing; 
Phinuit's statement is equally an assertion that Mr. E. is 
deliberately speaking; and the one statement may be no more 
a lie than the other is a forgery, and yet neither need be what 
is ordinarily called " true." 

That this community of mind or possibility of distant inter- 
change or one-sided reception of thoughts exists, is to me 
perfectly clear and certain. I venture further to say that 
persons who deny the bare fact, expressed as I here wish to 
express it without any hypothesis, are simply ignorant. They 
have not studied the facts of the subject. It may be for lack 
of opportunity, it may be for lack of inclination ; they are by 
no means bound to investigate it unless they choose ; but any 
dogmatic denials which such persons may now perpetrate will 
henceforth, or in the very near future, redound to the dis- 
credit, not of the phenomena thus ignorantly denied, but of 
themselves, the over-confident and presumptuous deniers. 

We must not too readily assume that the apparent action 
of one mind on another is really such an action. The im- 
pression received may come from the ostensible agent, but it 



n6 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

may come from a third person; or again it may, as some 
think more likely, come from a central mind or — some 
Anima Mundi, — to which all ordinary minds are related and 
by which they are influenced. If it could be shown that the 
action is a syntonic or sympathetic connexion between a pair 
of minds, then it might be surmised that the action is a 
physical one, properly to be expressed as occurring directly 
between brain and brain, or body and body. On the other 
hand, the action may conceivably be purely psychological, 
and the distant brain may be stimulated not by the inter- 
vention of anything physical or material but in some more 
immediate manner, — from its psychological instead of from 
its physiological side. 

The question is quite a definite one if properly expressed: 
Does the action take place through a physical medium, or 
does it not? 

Guesses at a priori likelihood are worthless ; if the question 
is to be answered it must be attacked experimentally. 

Now the ordinary way in which A communicates with B 
is through a certain physical mechanism, and the thought 
of A may be said to exist for a finite time as an etherial or 
aerial quiver before it reproduces a similar thought in the 
mind of B. We have got so accustomed to the existence of 
this intermediate physical process that instead of striking 
us as roundabout and puzzling it appeals to us as natural 
and simple; and any more direct action of A on B, without 
physical mechanism, is scouted as absurd or at least violently 
improbable. Well, it is merely a question of fact, and per- 
haps it is within the range of a crucial experiment. 

But it may be at once admitted that such an experiment is 
difficult of execution. If the effect is a physical one it should 
vary according to some law of distance, or it should depend 
on the nature of the intervening medium; but, in order to 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 117 

test whether in any given case such variation occurs, it is 
necessary to have both agent and percipient in an unusually 
dependable condition, and they should if possible be unaware 
of the variation which is under test. 

This last condition is desirable because of the sensitiveness 
of the sub-consciousness to suggestion: self-suggestion and 
other. If the percipient got an idea that distance or inter- 
posed screens were detrimental, most likely they would be 
detrimental; and although a suggestion might be artificially 
instilled that distance was advantageous, this would hardly 
leave the test quite fair, for the lessened physical stimulus 
might perhaps be over-utilised by the more keenly excited 
organism. Still that is an experiment to be tried among 
others; and it would be an instructive experience if the agent 
some day was, say, in India when the percipient thought he 
was in London, or vice versa. 

It is extremely desirable to probe this question of a physical 
or non-physical mode of communication in cases of telepathy; 
and if the fact can be established beyond doubt that sympa- 
thetic communication occurs between places as distant as 
India or America and England, or, the terrestrial antipodes, 
— being unfelt between, or in the neighbourhood of the 
source, — then I should feel that this was so unlike what 
we are accustomed to in Physics that I should be strongly 
urged to look to some other and more direct kind of mental 
relationship as the clue. Some of the recent experiments 
conducted by Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden (Proc, vol. 
xxi., pp. 60-93) tend to support such a contention. 

This, then, is the first question on which crucial experi- 
ments are desirable though difficult. 

(1) Is the mechanism of telepathy physical or not? 

The second question of which I am thinking is one less 
easy to state and far less easy (as I think) to resolve. It 



n8 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

may be stated thus, in two parts, or as two separate ques- 
tions : — 

(2) Is the power of operating on the minds of terrestrial 
persons confined to living terrestrial people ? 

(3) Is the power of operating on or interfering with the 
rest of the physical universe confined to living material 
bodies? 

I should conjecture that an affirmative answer to Question 

1 would render likely an affirmative answer to Questions 2 
and 3 ; but that a negative answer to Question 1 would leave 

2 and 3 entirely open, because, so far as we at present know, 
terrestrial people, and people with material bodies, may be 
the only people who exist. 

It is this possibility, or, as many would hold, probability or 
almost certainty, that renders the strict scientific statement 
of Questions 2 and 3 so difficult. Yet they are questions 
which must be faced, and they ought to be susceptible, in 
time, of receiving definite answers. 

That there are living terrestrial people we know ; we also 
know that there is an immense variety of other terrestrial 
life; — though, if we were not so familiar with the fact, 
the luxuriant prevalence and variety of life would be sur- 
prising. The existence of a bat, for instance, or a lobster, 
would be quite incredible. Whether there is life on other 
planets we do not know, and whether there is conscious 
existence between the planets we do not know; but I see no 
a priori reason for making scientific assertions on the subject 
one way or the other. It is only at present a matter of 
probability. Just because we know that the earth is peopled 
with an immense variety of living beings, I myself should 
rather expect to find other regions many-peopled, and with 
a still more extraordinary variety. So also since mental 
action is conspicuous on the earth I should expect to find 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 119 

it existent elsewhere. If life is necessarily associated with 
a material carcase, then no doubt the surface of one of the 
many planetay masses must be the scene of its activity; but 
if any kind of mental action is independent of material or 
physical environment, then it may conceivably be that the 
psychical population is not limited to the surface of material 
aggregates or globes of matter, but may luxuriate either in 
the interstellar spaces or in some undimensional form of ex- 
istence of which we have no conception. 

Were it not for the fact of telepathy the entire question 
would be an idle one, — a speculation based on nothing and 
apparently incapable of examination, still less of verification 
or disproof. But granted the fact of telepathy the ques- 
tion ceases to be an idle one, because it is just possible that 
these other intelligences, if they in any sense exist, may be 
able to communicate with us by the same sort of process as 
that by which we are now learning to be able to communicate 
with each other. Whether it be true or not, it has been con- 
stantly and vehemently asserted as a fact that such com- 
munications, mainly from deceased relatives, but often also 
from strangers, are occasionally received by living persons. 

The utterances of Phinuit, the handwriting of Miss A, 
Mr. Stainton Moses, and others, abound with communica- 
tions purporting to come from minds not now associated 
with terrestrial matter. 

Very well then; is a crucial or test experiment possible, 
to settle whether this claim is well founded or not? 

Mere sentimental messages, conveying personal traits of 
the deceased, though frequently convincing to surviving 
friends, cannot be allowed much scientific weight. Some- 
thing more definite or generally intelligible must be sought. 

Of such facts the handwriting of the deceased person, if 
reproduced accurately by an automatist who has never seen 



120 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

that handwriting, seems an exceptionally good test if it can 
be obtained. But the negative proof of ignorance on the 
part of the writer is difficult. 

At first sight facts known to the deceased but not known 
to the automatist, if reported in a correct and detailed 
manner so as to surpass mere coincidence, would seem a 
satisfactory test. But here telepathy, which has stood us 
in good stead so far, begins to operate the other way; for 
if the facts are known to nobody on earth they cannot per- 
haps be verified; and if they are known to somebody still 
alive — however distant he may be — it is necessary to 
assume it possible that they were unconsciously " tel- 
epathed " from his mind. 

But a certain class of facts may be verified without the 
assistance or knowledge of any living person, — as when a 
miser having died with the sole clue to a deposit of " val- 
uables," an automatist's hand, over the miser's signature, 
subsequently describes the place ; or when a sealed document, 
carefully deposited, is posthumously deciphered. The test in 
either of these cases is a better one. But still, living 
telepathy of a deferred kind is not excluded (though to 
my thinking it is rendered extremely improbable), for, as 
Mr. Podmore has often urged, the person writing the docu- 
ment or burying the treasure may have been ipso facto an 
unconscious agent on the minds of contemporaries. 

Case of Apparently Posthumous Activity 

One of the most remarkable instances of this kind, and 
one which fortunately received the attention of the philoso- 
pher Kant, is one in which Swedenborg acted as the Medium, 
and is thus described by Kant in a letter published as an 
Appendix to his cautious little book on clairvoyance which 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 121 

has been translated into English under the title, Dreams of a 
Spirit Seer. 

"Madame Herteville (Marteville), the widow of the Dutch 
Ambassador in Stockholm, some time after the death of her husband, 
was called upon by Croon, a goldsmith, to pay for a silver service 
which her husband had purchased from him. The widow was 
convinced that her late husband had been much too precise and 
orderly not to have paid this debt, yet she was unable to find this 
receipt. In her sorrow, and because the amount was considerable, 
she requested Mr. Swedenborg/to call at her house. After apologising 
to him for troubling him, she said that if, as all people say, he pos- 
sessed the extraordinary gift of conversing with the souls of the 
departed, he would perhaps have the kindness to ask her husband how 
it was about the silver service. Swedenborg did not at all object to 
comply with her request. Three days afterward the said lady had 
company at her house for coffee. Swedenborg called, and in his 
cool way informed her that he had conversed with her husband. The 
debt had been paid several months before his decease, and the receipt 
was in a bureau in the room upstairs. The lady replied that the 
bureau had been quite cleared out, and that the receipt was not 
found among all the papers. Swedenborg said that her husband had 
described to him, how after pulling out the lefthand drawer a board 
would appear, which required to be drawn out, when a secret com- 
partment would be disclosed, containing his private Dutch corre- 
spondence, as well as the receipt. Upon hearing this description the 
whole company arose and accompanied the lady into the room up- 
stairs. The bureau was opened; they did as they were directed; the 
compartment was found, of which no one had ever known before; 
and to the great astonishment of all, the papers were discovered 
there, in accordance with his description." 

It is difficult to attribute this apparently posthumous 
activity to deferred telepathy from the living burgomaster 
— i. e., deferred from the time when he was engaged in 
storing the papers — perhaps still more in this case because 



122 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

they were not stored with any view of subsequently disclos- 
ing their hiding place. Postponement of the apparently 
posthumous action for more than a century, so that all con- 
temporaries are necessarily dead, strains this sort of 
telepathic explanation still more — in fact to breaking point; 
but such an event is hardly within the reach of purposed ex- 
periment. The storage of objects or messages is; and re- 
sponsible people ought to write and deposit specific docu- 
ments, for the purpose of posthumously communicating them 
to some one if they can; taking all reasonable precautions 
against fraud and collusion, and also, — which is perhaps a 
considerable demand, — taking care that they do not forget 
the contents themselves. 

That such forgetfulness is extremely probable has always 
strongly presented itself to my mind and has been of force 
sufficient to prevent my depositing any of these documents 
with my friends. I am sure that I should forget their con- 
tents — forget even that I had written anything — ■ and if 
reminded should be hopelessly confused as to which sentence 
I had placed in which envelope. 

That the test may fail, owing either to this or to some 
other reason, is manifested by the following record — which 
has already been more than sufficiently published and has 
become well known. As a negative experiment however it 
is my business not to slur it over in any way, so I reproduce 
the judicial statement in the Journal of the Society. 

Opening of an envelope containing a Posthumous Note 
left by Mr. Myers 

On December 13th, 1904, Sir Oliver Lodge invited the Members 
of the Council and a few other Members of the Society to the Society's 
Rooms at 20 Hanover Square to witness the opening of a sealed 
envelope which had been sent to him by Mr. Myers in January 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 123 

1 89 1 (nearly fourteen years ago), in the hope that after his death 
its contents might be given by communication through some medium. 

It had been decided to open it because various statements made 
in Mrs. Verrall's automatic script during the last three years had led 
her to infer that it contained a certain phrase. The apparent refer- 
ences to this posthumous note had begun vaguely, and gradually 
developed, with some repetition, into what seemed to be a clear and 
definite statement of what was contained in Sir Oliver Lodge's 
envelope. The references to the envelope purported to come from 
Mr. Myers, and were mixed up with writing, some of which ap- 
peared to be veridical, relating to other topics, especially with a 
statement — written before the publication of Human Personality 
— that a certain passage would be found in that book when pub- 
lished. This having been verified, it was hoped that the account 
given by the script of the Contents of the envelope might turn out 
equally correct. 

The meeting was summoned by a circular, of which the annexed 
is a copy: — 

Mariemontj Edgbaston, December, 1 904 

It is probably known to you that some years ago F. W. H. Myers 
deposited with me an envelope containing some sort of writing or 
message, to be posthumously deciphered if possible. 

It is also known to you that Mrs. Verrall developed the faculty of 
automatic writing soon after Myers's death. It now appears that 
she believes herself to have received messages or indications as to 
the contents of this envelope. This impression of hers may, of 
course, be mistaken, but the advantage of it is that it is definite, and 
she is able to put into writing what she thinks the contents of the 
envelope will be found to be. 

That being so, I have taken advice, and find a general consensus 
of opinion that it is time now to open the envelope and verify or 
disprove the agreement; or, if there is partial agreement, to ascertain 
its amount. 

The envelope has been for some time deposited in a bank, but I 
propose to have it handed back to me some time this week, and to 
bring it up to London on Tuesday, December 13th, and then, at 



i2 4 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

4 p.m., in the rooms of the Society for Psychical Research, 20 
Hanover Square, after making a statement regarding it and reading 
Mrs. Verrall's statement of what she believes to be in it, to open it 
in the presence of a sufficient number of witnesses. I do not pro- 
pose to do it at a Council meeting, because I think it desirable that 
one or two outsiders should be present, inasmuch as I wish the 
event to be known and "counted," whether it turn out successful 
or the reverse. The only way to avoid chance coincidence is to 
determine beforehand whether any given event shall " count " or 
not; and, subject to anything that may happen between now and 
then, I propose that this shall count, and that the envelope shall 
then be opened. 

I invite you, therefore, if you think fit, to come to the rooms of 
the Society on Tuesday, December 13th, at 4 p.m. 

It must be understood that the proceedings are confidential, and 
that the question of subsequent publication must be reserved for the 
Council of the Society. Oliver Lodge. 

Mrs. Verrall first reported to the meeting the conclusions she had 
been led to form concerning the envelope from her own script, and 
read the apparently relevant passages. On the envelope being opened, 
however, it was found that there was no resemblance between its 
actual contents and what was alleged by the script to be contained 
in it. 

It has, then, to be reported that this one experiment com- 
pletely failed, and it cannot be denied that the failure is 
disappointing. But after all, even if this communication 
of the contents of a sealed envelope had been successfully 
achieved, the proof to us of mental action on the part of 
the deceased " agent " would still be incomplete, for it may 
be that telepathy is not the right kind of explanation of these 
things at all; it may be that they are done — if ever they are 
done — by clairvoyance; that the document, though still 
sealed or enclosed in metal, is read in some unknown or 
fourth-dimensional manner by the subliminal self. 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 125 

The existence of such a power as this, however, can be 
separately tested; because, if straightforward clairvoyance 
is possible, things unknown to any person living or dead may 
be read or inspected, — such as a piece of print torn at 
random out of an unread newspaper and sealed up, or a 
handful of alphabet letters or figures grasped from a box. 
(Proc. S. P. R., vi., 494.) And in trying this experiment 
a negative conclusion must not be jumped at too readily. 
A positive answer might be definite enough; a negative 
answer can only be a probability. Moreover, it would per- 
haps be unwise to tell an automatist who is endeavouring to 
decipher the unknown figures that in that collocation they 
have never been inspected by man, — the knowledge might 
act as a gratuitously hostile or debilitating suggestion. 

But even when such things are read, allowance must be 
made for some extraordinary possibility of hyperesthesia — 
whether it be that of feeling on the part of the person who 
sealed them up, or of a kind of X-ray vision on the part 
of the clairvoyant, or some other even more forced hypothe- 
sis. Mrs. Sidgwick's paper on the evidence for real clair- 
voyance is in the Proceedings, S. P. R., vol. vii., but I will not 
quote any of the instances there given. The term clair- 
voyance ought strictly to be reserved for direct apprehension 
of hidden things without aid from any human knowledge, 
but in common practise the term is often applied also to the 
more numerous cases when some kind of telepathy is 
possible, provided the circumstances are such as to make a 
sensitive kind of direct perception not altogether improbable. 
If telepathy ever occurs from a supra-mundane and im- 
material region, that is to say from a discarnate mind not 
possessed of a brain, it may be difficult or impossible to dis- 
tinguish it from clairvoyance. And indeed probably no 
discrimination would be necessary: that may be what 



126 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

" second-sight " or clairvoyance really is> But from the 
scientific point of view there is clearly all the difference in 
the world between recognised telepathy, such as has been 
proved to occur between one living person and another, and 
that other more hypothetical kind which has been suspected 
as occurring between discarnate intelligences, if there are 
any, and living people. If the process of ordinary experi- 
mental telepathy were ever ascertained to be a direct action 
of brain on brain, then acceptance of the other more 
hypothetical kind of telepathy would be almost forbidden — 
at any rate would be rendered extremely difficult. If how- 
ever the process of transmission should turn out to be a 
purely psychical one, — that is a psychological action 
directly between mind and mind, so that the brains at each 
end are only the instruments of record and verification, — 
then the possibility of a transfer of thought, between minds 
unprovided with these appliances — or between one such 
mind and an embodied mind — is not at all inconceivable. 
It still has to be established, of course, and the difficulty 
of proof is still very great; but the effort towards such a 
proof is a legitimate one. It is that effort which for some 
years now the Society has been patiently making, and some 
of the results so far attained will be dealt with in Section 
IV. The distinction here drawn, between a comparatively 
customary, and what may strike us as a more recondite and 
unexpected method of communication, may be illustrated by 
reference to the facts of telegraphy: — 

In ordinary telegraphy the message manifestly goes some- 
how from signalling key to receiving galvanometer; and, 
if attention is concentrated upon those obvious instruments 
alone, it might be thought that there was some direct 
mechanical connexion between them. But the real ar- 
rangement is more elaborate than that — a battery or 



IMMATERIAL TELEPATHY 127 

dynamo in die cellar has to be taken into account, — and 
the actual process of transmission involves some fairly re- 
cently discovered properties of the ether of space. The 
message is conveyed etherially, not by matter at all; it can 
cross vacuum with perfect ease, though it is sent and re- 
ceived and interpreted by matter. I am speaking of 
ordinary telegraphy; there is no need to distinguish it from 
" wireless " in this particular. 

I am not denying of course that telegraphic transmission 
is a physical process. All I imply by the parable is that 
the first impression of a spectator or critic, that telepathy 
is a physiological process effected direct between brain and 
brain, may not be the correct one. For telegraphy had been 
carried on commercially for years, before it was properly 
understood; and even now there must remain many things 
to be discovered about it. So that it is hardly likely that 
in telepathy we have a process which is easily and quickly 
intelligible; nor is it in the least certain that the mode of 
transmission can be stated in terms of matter. Perhaps it 
cannot be stated even in terms of ether. The whole idea 
or imagery of space-relations in respect of mind may be 
misleading. 



CHAPTER IX 

EXAMPLES OF APPARENT CLAIRVOYANCE 

TO show that some apparent clairvoyance, whether it 
be due to hyperasstehsia or telepathy or something 
else, is really possible, I take an instructive little 
experiment recorded by Mrs. Verrall in Proceedings, vol. 
xi., p. 192 — which she tried in November 1890 with her 
daughter who was then a child aged 7^2 years. Other in- 
stances will be mentioned later on. 

Recognition of Objects by Telepathy or Hyperesthesia. 
Percipient, H. Aged 7>4 Years 

Mrs. Verrall reports as follows: — 

In November, 1890, I tried the following experiment with H. I 
drew a diagram, which I placed on H.'s forehead, while her eyes 
were shut, and asked her to describe it. To make the performance 
more like a game, I went on to ask what colour it was, and what 
she could see through it. We tried four experiments, three on the 
afternoon of November 16th, and one at 6.15 on November 30th, 
with the following results: — 
Object drawn. — A triangle. 

Result. — H. drew a triangle with her finger in the air. Right. 
Object drawn. — A triangle with apex cut off. 
Result. — H. described and drew an irregular figure, which did 
not seem to satisfy her, then said it was like an oval dish 
Wrong. 
Object drawn. — A square. 

Result. — H. said: " It's like a window with no cross bars," and 
drew a four-sided rectangular figure in the air. Right. 

128 



EXAMPLES 129 

Object drawn. — A square divided into 4 squares by a vertical 
and a horizontal line. 

Result.— H. said: "It's a diamond." "What else?" said I, 
meaning what colour, etc. " It's got a line across it, and an- 
other across that. [Right. ~\ The colour is pale blue." 

When I gave her the diagram, she turned it anglewise and said, 
" Oh yes, that's right, and the colour was not far wrong." As the 
diagram was drawn in ink on white paper, I did not understand, and 
asked what she meant. She said, " Why, it's all blue, bluish white 
inside, and even the ink is blue." The diagram had been dried with 
blotting paper and was not a very deep black, but I could see nothing 
blue. Ten minutes afterwards she picked up the paper again and 
commented on the fact that it was blue, the lines dark bright blue, 
and the inside pale blue. I burnt the diagram and discontinued the 
game after observing this persistence of a self-suggested hallucination. 

We had previously tried experiments which seemed to show that 
the child could feel the diagram. She could almost always tell 
whether the right or wrong side of a playing card were placed on 
her forehead. I was quite unable to distinguish the two sides. I 
am more inclined to attribute her successes (3 out of 4) to hyperes- 
thesia than to telepathy. 

I will now quote a case which is rather a striking example 
of the fact that the intelligence operative through uncon- 
scious or subliminal processes is superior to that of the 
normal intelligence of the persons concerned, so that just 
as people occasionally seem able to become cognisant of facts 
or events by means ordinarily closed to them, — a phenome- 
non which appears akin to the water-dowsing faculty and to 
the " homing " instincts of animals, — so sometimes they can 
write poetry or solve problems beyond their normal capacity. 

Here for instance is the case of the solution of a 
mathematical problem by automatic writing — with the 
pencil not held in the hand, but attached to the heart-shaped 
piece of board called a " planchette." It is quoted from the 



130 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

record which I communicated at the time to the Journal of 
the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xi. 



A Case of Automatic Intelligence 

One feature of interest is that both the witnesses are ex- 
ceptionally competent. The account was written by an old 
pupil of my own at Bedford College in the seventies — one 
of the ablest students there, — Miss C. M. Pole, daughter 
of the late Dr. Pole, F. R. S., the well-known Engineer, 
Musician, and writer on card-game. Miss Pole is now 
Mrs. Garrett Smith, living at Madgeburg, and writes as 
follows : — 

In the early part of 1885 I was staying at in the house of 

Mrs. Q., and I and her daughter, Miss Q., B. A. Lond., used to 
amuse ourselves in writing with a Planchette. We had several 
Planchettes (I think four), but we could only get response from 
one of them, which belonged to Miss Q. In the house with us were 
some eight or nine others, . . . but for no other pair would the 
Planchette act. The same one had formerly given good results with 
Miss Q. and another friend, but I have never written with a Plan- 
chette before or since. We got all sorts of nonsense out of it, 
sometimes long doggerel rhymes with several verses. Sometimes we 
asked for prophecies, but I do not remember ever getting one which 
came true, and my impression is that generally when we asked for 
a prophecy the thing went off in a straight line — running off the 
table if we did not take our hands off. It often did this, refusing 
to write at all, and towards the end of my stay there I believe it was 
always so; we could get no answer from it. I believe we often 
asked Planchette who the guiding spirit was; but I only once re- 
member getting a definite connected answer. Then it wrote that his 
name was " Jim," and that he had been a Senior Wrangler. After 
other questions, we asked it to write the equation to its own curve 
[in other words, to express mathematically the outline of the heart- 
shaped board], Planchette wrote something like this quite dis- 
tinctly — 



EXAMPLES 



131 




(The curl backwards always denoted that the answer was fin- 
ished.) 

We repeated the question several times, but each time the an- 
swer was the same, sometimes more, sometimes less distinct. We 

a ^ ' T 1 11 

interpreted it as r= ... 1 knew just enough to be 

6 

able to draw the curve represented by the equation. In my first 

try I made a mistake and believed the curve to be quite a different 

one, but afterwards I drew [something like] the following [rough 

sketch] — a double never-ending spiral: 




We checked our result by taking the equation to the Mathematical 
Master at the Boys' College, who drew the same [sort of] curve for 
us, but we did not tell him where we got the equation from. 

I cannot say whether the Planchette we used was really exactly the 
shape of the outside curve ; I should rather fancy that with the heart 
shape the resemblance ended. I am quite sure that I had never seen 
the curve before, and therefore the production of the equation could 



132 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

not have been an act of unconscious memory on my part. Also I 
most certainly did not know enough mathematics to know how to 
form an equation which would represent such a curve, or to know 
leven of what type the equation must be. But I had come across 
such equations and drawn the curves represented by them ; — for in- 
stance, afterwards I found in my notebook the spiral r 6 = J /2 tr a, 
and the cardioid r = a (i -f- cos#). We had used no text-book, 
and in the full notes of the lectures I had attended, these were the 
two curves I found most similar to Planchette's. If my brain pro- 
duced the equation written by Planchette, it must have been that I 
unconsciously formed an equation like some I had seen before, which 
by a curious coincidence chanced to represent a heart-shaped curve. 

I know that we were both quite unconscious of any influence we 
may have exercised on the Planchette. 

Cecilia Garrett Smith. 

Magdeburg, November 1903 

March 23rd, 1904 

I (O. L.) made inquiries about Miss Q. and found that 
she was well known to friends of mine, and was a serious 
and responsible and trustworthy person, so I wrote some 
further questions to her, and received the following reply :— 

. As far as Miss Pole and I were concerned, it was quite 
bona-fide, and was not open to any suspicion of practical joking or 
setting traps for each other. It is true that when we wrote plan- 
chette, it was never with any serious motive, such as with the object 
of testing the unconscious mind, or for any scientific purpose, but 
merely for the fun of the thing. We used to ask it to prophesy 
future events, and to make up poetry, and all purely for amusement, 
after the manner of schoolgirls. Nevertheless, all that was written 
was quite in good faith. 

The equation written did not come within the mathematical knowl- 
edge I then possessed, which was limited to the mathematics neces- 
sary for the London B.A. Pass Degree. I knew of course that 
every curve could be represented by an equation, and I was familiar 



EXAMPLES 133 

with polar co-ordinates in which the equation was written. But the 
only equations I could then identify were those of the conic sections. 
Miss Pole had read some elementary Differential, and knew more 
than I did, but my impression is that her knowledge was not sufficient 
to enable her to trace curves. 

Certainly neither of us perceived from the appearance of the 
equation that the reply was the correct one, but that I think would 
have been too much to expect, even if our knowledge had been much 
higher than it was. 

I did not know sufficient at that time to attempt to plot the curve. 
I believe Miss Pole did attempt it, but if so, her attempts were un- 
successful. We were not satisfied that the equation did represent a 
curve like the outline of the planchette till we had asked our mathe- 
matical master to trace it for us. (This was done without telling 
him any of the facts of the case.) 

I do not remember that we ever closely compared the curve he 
drew in tracing the equation with the actual planchette in question. 
We did not take the matter very seriously, and were quite content 
when we saw that the solution was at all events approximately true. 

On now tracing the curve represented by the equation, I am 
inclined to think that it very closely resembles the shape of the actual 
planchette used, from my memory of it. (The planchette is no 
longer in existence.) . . . 

To this I (O. L.) add that the equation which would 
naturally occur to any one is the cardioid r = a ( I -f- cos 0) ; 
but it is quite likely, as Mrs. Garrett Smith says, that al- 
though as a student she was undoubtedly aware of this 
curve, she might not, some years afterward, be able to re- 
produce it on demand. 

The equation written by Planchette is not a familiar one 
and certainly would not be likely to occur to her, nor would 
it have occurred to me; but the sketch given does not profess 
to be an exact representation of the curve corresponding to 
the equation written by the planchette, but only represents 
her recollection of its general character. 



134 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

Mr. J. W. Sharpe, of Bournemouth, has been good 
enough to draw out an accurate graph of the curve, and here 
is his drawing on a reduced scale. . 




It is to be remembered that the equation r = a • 



was given by Planchette, as representing mathematically 

the shape of its own outline or boundary; the intelligence 

controlling its movements being represented as that of a 

Cambridge Wrangler. 

With regard to his drawing Mr. Sharpe observes that 
the curve does not consist of two sets of spirals, as at first 
depicted roughly, but of two sets of loops, all passing 
through the cusp and touching one another there, and all 
contained within the outer heart-shaped boundary. The 
loops meet only at the cusp, and there is an infinite number 
of them. They decrease in area without limit, ultimately 
sinking into the point of the cusp. 

The equation very well represents the ordinary form 
of a planchette. But if it had accidentally been reversed 

n 

into r = a the curve would have been entirely different 

sin 0, < J 

different and entirely unlike any planchette outline. 

Mr. Sharpe thinks it very unlikely that either of the 



EXAMPLES 135 

automatists had ever seen an accurate graph of the equation 
given in their writing. It is of course much more difficult 
to invent an equation to fit a given curve (which was the 
feat performed by the writing in this case) than, when the 
equation is given, to draw the curve represented by it. 



Power of Unseen Reading 

In illustration of supernormal power of a still more ex- 
cessive kind I quote from the automatic writings of Mr. 
Stainton Moses — well known as a master for many years 
in University College School, London — who for a great 
part of this period used to write automatically in the early 
morning in solitude. A great number of these writings 
have been published and are well known to all students of 
the subject; but the following incident is of a surprising 
character and is an example, though an exceptionally strong 
one, of the power of reading letters etc., possessed in some 
degree by one or two of the " controls " of Mrs. Piper and 
of many another medium in history. 

The following script was obtained by Mr. Stainton Moses while 
he was sitting in Dr. Speer's library and discoursing with various 
supposed communicators through his writing hand: — 

See Proceedings, S. P. R., vol. xi., p. 106. 
S. M. Can you read? 

" No, friend, I cannot, but Zachary Gray can, and Rector. 
I am not able to materialise myself, or to command the ele- 
ments." 
S. M. Are either of those spirits here? 

" I will bring one by and by. I will send . . . Rector 
is here." 
S. M. I am told you can read. Is that so? Can you read a book? 
(Handwriting changed). " Yes, friend, with difficulty." 



136 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

S. M. Will you write for me the last line of the first book of the 
^Enid? 

" Wait Omnibus errantem terris et fluctibus aestas" 

[This was right.] 

S. M. Quite so. But I might have known it. Can you go to the 
bookcase, take the last book but one on the second shelf, 
and read me the last paragraph of the ninety- fourth page? 
I have not seen it, and do not even know its name. 
[With a little delay the following writing came.] 
" I will curtly prove by a short historical narrative, that 
Popery is a novelty, and has gradually arisen or grown up 
since the primitive and pure time of Christianity, not only 
since the apostolic age, but even since the lamentable union 
of kirk and state by Constantine." 
(The book on examination proved to be a queer one called 
"Rogers Antipopopriestian, an attempt to liberate and 
purify Christianity from Popery, Politikirkality, and Priest- 
rule." The extract given above was accurate, but the word 
"narrative" substituted for "account.") 

S. M. How came I to pitch upon so appropriate a sentence? 

" I know not, my friend. It was done by coincidence. The 
word was changed in error. I knew it when it was done, 
but would not change." 

S. M. How do you read? You wrote more slowly, and by fits and 
starts. 
" I wrote what I remembered and then went for more. It 
is a special effort to read, and useful only as a test. Your 
friend was right last night; we can read, but only when 
conditions are very good. We will read once again, and 
write, and then impress you of the book : — ' Pope is the 
last great writer of that school of poetry, the poetry of the 
intellect, or of the intellect mingled with the fancy.' That 
is truly written. Go and take the eleventh book on the 
same shelf. [I took a book called Poetry, Romance, and 
Rhetoric] It will open at the page for you. Take it 
and read, and recognise our power, and the permission 



EXAMPLES 137 

which the great and good God gives us, to show you of 
our power over matter. To Him be glory. Amen." 
(The bcok opened at page 145.. and there was the quotation 
perfectly true. I had not seen the book before: certainly 
had no idea of its contents. S. M.) [These books were 
in Dr. Speer's library: — F. W. H. M-] 

To this Mr. Myers pertinently appends the note: — 

It is plain that a power such as this, of acquiring and re- 
producing fresh knowledge, interposes much difficulty in the 
way of identifying any alleged spirit by means of his knowl- 
edge of the facts of his earth life. 



Dream Lucidity 

To illustrate the fact that extra or supernormal lucidity 
is possible in dreams, a multitude of instances might be 
quoted from the publications of the Society for Psychical 
Research. Almost at random I quote two, — the first a 
short one of which the contemporary record is reported on 
by a critical and sceptical member of the Society, Mr. Thos. 
Barkworth, in the Journal of the Society for Dec. 1895. 

G. 249. Dream. 

The following is a case which was noted at the time, before it was 
known to be veridical. 

It was received by Mr. Bankworth, who writes concerning it. 

West Hatch. Chigwell, Essex, August 24-th, [1895] 
It has been often made a subject of reproach by persons who dis- 
trust the S. P. R. that the evidence we obtain is seldom, if ever, sup- 
ported by written records demonstrably made before the dream or 
the hallucination had been verified by subsequently ascertained facts. 
Indeed, a Mr. Taylor Innes, writing in the Nineteenth Century 
some years ago, went so far, if I remember rightly, as to assert that 



138 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

no such case could be produced up to the time he wrote. It must 
certainly be admitted that in provoking numerous instances it is 
found that the alleged letter or diary has been destroyed. 

The following experience of the Rev. E. K. Elliott, Rector of 
Worthing, who was formerly in the navy, and who made the entry in 
his diary as quoted when he was cruising in the Atlantic out of reach 
of post or telegraph, will therefore be found of interest. The diary 
is still in his possession. T. B. 

Extract from diary written out In Atlantic, January i^th, 1847 

Dreamt last night I received a letter from my uncle, H. E., 
dated January 3rd, in which news of my dear brother's death was 
given. It greatly struck me. 

My brother had been ill in Switzerland, but the last news I re- 
ceived on leaving England was that he was better. 

The ' January 3rd ' was very black, as if intended to catch my 
eye. 

On my return to England I found, as I quite expected, a letter 
awaiting me saying my brother had died on the above date." 

Worthing. E. K. Elliott. 

The second case I quote is a much longer and more 
elaborate one, and we owe its receipt to Dr. Hodgson while 
in America. 

There are many partially similar records of people be- 
coming aware of an accident in which some near relative 
was injured or killed : and it is noteworthy that the emotion 
caused by injury seems as likely to convey such an impres- 
sion as anything pertaining to death itself; but the point of 
the following narrative is that a complete stranger became 
impressed with facts which were happening at a distance, 
without the slightest personal interest in any one concerned 
— so that it seems to make in favour of a general clair- 
voyant faculty rather than for any spiritistic explanation. 
The prefix P. 224 is merely a classificatory reference number. 



EXAMPLES 139 

P. 224. Dream. 

The following case has some resemblance to Mrs. Stone's experi- 
ence, of which an account was published in Phantasms of the Living, 
vol. i., p. 370, except that the person whose fate was represented in 
the dream was in the case here printed entirely unknown to the 
dreamer. The account is written by Mr. H. W. Wack, Attorney, 
and comes to us through the American Branch of the Society. 

Court House, St. Paul, Minn., February 10th, 1892 

" I believe I have had a remarkable experience. About midnight 
on the 29th day of December, headsore and fatigued, I left my 
study where I had been poring over uninspiring law text, and, 
climbing to my chamber door, fell into bed for the night. 

" Nothing unusual had transpired in my affairs that day, and yet, 
when I gave myself to rest, my brain buzzed on with a myriad fancies. 
I lay an hour, awake, and blinking like an over-fed owl. The weird 
intonation of an old kitchen clock fell upon my ears but faintly, as it 
donged the hour of two. The sound of the clock chime had hardly 
died when I became conscious [of] my position in a passenger coach 
on the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha railroad. I was journeying 
to Duluth, Minnesota, from St. Paul, in which latter place I had 
gone to sleep. I was aware that I had been on the train about four 
hours and that I was somewhere near the town of Shell Lake, Wis., 
distant from St. Paul about eighty miles. I had often been over the 
road, and as I peered through the coach windew, I recognised, in 
the moonlit scene, features of country and habitation I had seen be- 
fore. We were plunging on, almost heedlessly as it seemed, when I 
fancied I heard and was startled from my reverie by a piercing 
shriek, which was protracted into a piteous moaning and gasping, as 
if some human creature were suffering some hideous torture. 

" Then I felt the train grind heavily to an awkward stop. There 
was a sudden commotion fore and aft. Train men with lanterns 
hurried through my car and joined employes near the engine. I 
could see the lights flash here and there, beside and beneath the cars; 
brakemen moved along the wheels in groups, the pipe voice of the 



140 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

conductor and the awe-stricken cry of the black porter infused a 
livening sense to a scene which I did not readily understand. In- 
stinctively I concluded that an accident had happened, or perhaps that 
a break to the train had occasioned this sudden uprising of train men. 
A minute later I was out upon the road bed. The brusque and 
busy search and the disturbed manner of the attendants did not 
propitiate elaborate inquiry from a curious passenger, so I was ap- 
peased to be told, in very ugly snappish English, that if I had eyes 
I might see for myself that ' some one got killed, I reckon.' Every- 
body moved and acted in a spirit of stealth, and each, it appeared, 
expected a horrible ' find.' The trucks were being examined from 
the rear of the train forward. Blood splotches were discovered on 
nearly all the bearings under the entire train. When the gang 
reached one of the forward cars, all lights were cast upon a truck 
which was literally scrambled with what appeared to be brains — 
human brains, evidently, for among the clots were small tufts of 
human hair. This truck, particularly, must have ground over the 
bulk of a human body. Every fixture between the wheels was 
smeared with the crimson ooze of some crushed victim. But where 
was the body, or at least its members? The trucks were covered 
only with a pulp of mangled remnants. The search for what ap- 
peared of the killed was extended 500 yards back of the train and all 
about the right-of-way with no more satisfactory result than to occa- 
sionally find a blood-stained tie. 

" All hands boarded the train ; many declaring that it was an un- 
usual mishap on a railroad which left such uncertain trace of its vic- 
tim. Again I felt the train thundering on through the burnt pine 
wastes of northern Minnesota. As I reclined there in my berth, I 
reflected upon the experience of the night, and often befuddled my 
sleepy head in an effort to understand how a train, pushing along 
at the rate of thirty miles an hour, could so grind and triturate a 
vital bulk, staining only trucks behind the engine, unless the killed 
at the fatal time were upon the truck or huddled closely by it. I 
concluded, therefore, that the being destroyed under the train had 
been concealed near the bespattered fixtures of the car. I had read 
of death to tramps stealing rides by hiding themselves under or 



EXAMPLES 141 

between cars, and finally I dismissed meditation — assured that an- 
other unfortunate itinerant had been crushed out of existence. Hor- 
rible! I shuddered and awoke — relieved to comprehend it all a 
dream, 

" Now the fact that the foregoing is an accurate statement of a 
dream experienced by me is not a matter for marvel. Taken alone, 
there is nothing remarkable in the time at which this vision blackened 
my sleep. The spell was upon me between two and three o'clock in 
the morning — of that I am certain. I am positive of the time, be- 
cause, when I awoke, I heard the clock distinctly, as it struck three. 

" On the morrow, I, — who usually forget an ordinary dream long 
before breakfast — recounted to the family the details of the night's 
distraction. From my hearers there followed only the ordinary com- 
ments of how ghastly and how shocking the story was as told and 
how strange the nature of the accident — that no parts of the body 
had been found. The latter circumstance was, to me also, quite an 
unusual feature of railroad casualty. 

" The evening following the night of the dream (December 30th), 
at 5 o'clock, I returned to my home, stepped into my study, and, as 
I am in the habit of doing, I glanced at a page of the St. Paul 
Dispatch, a daily evening newspaper. It had been casually folded 
by a previous reader, so that in picking it up flatly, the article which 
first fixed my attention read: 

" ' Fate of a tramp. Horrible death experienced by an unknown 
man on the Omaha Road. His remains scattered for miles along the 
track by the merciless wheels. 

" ' Duluth, December 30. — Every truck on the incoming Omaha 
train from St. Paul this morning was splashed with blood. Train 
men did not know there had been an accident till they arrived here, 
but think some unfortunate man must have been stealing a ride be- 
tween St. Paul and this city. Train men on a later train state that 
a man's leg was found by them at Spooner, and that for two miles 
this side the tracks were scattered with pieces of flesh and bone. 
There is no possible means of identification.' 

" Here was an evident verification of all that transpired in my 
mind between two and three o'clock on the previous night. I re- 



142 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

fleeted, and the more I pondered the faster I became convinced that 
I had been in some mysterious form, spirit or element, witness of 
the tragedy reported in the columns of the press — that my vision was 
perfect as to general details, and the impression complete and exact 
to time, place, and circumstance. The next morning I scanned the 
pages of the Pioneer Press of December 31st, and read the following 
paragraph : — 

Unknown man killed, Shell Lake, Wis. Special telegram, 
December 30th. — Fragments of the body of an unknown man were 
picked up on the railroad track to-day. Portions of the same body 
were also found on over 100 miles of the railroad. He is supposed 
to have been killed by the night train, but just where it is not 
known.' 

" With this came the conviction to me that, living and asleep, IOO 
miles from the place of the killing, I had been subjected to the 
phantom-sight of an actual occurrence on the Omaha railroad, as 
vivid and in truth as I have stated it above. 

" I have not written this account because Mark Twain and other 
authors have published in current magazines their experiences in what 
is termed Mental Telepathy or Mental Telegraphy. On the con- 
trary, having read a number of those articles, I have hesitated to 
utter, as authentic, what I now believe to be a material and striking 
evidence of the extent, the caprice, and the possibilities of this occult 
phenomenon." 

" Harry W. Wack." 

In reply to Dr. Hodgson's inquiries, Mr. Wack wrote: — 

" St. Paul, February 20th, 1892 
"My Dear Sir, — Replying to your valued favour of the 15th 
inst., I will say that you are right in understanding that my account 
of the dream submitted to your Society is a true narrative. 

" I reaffirm every word of it, and give you my solemn assurance 
that, as I have stated, I informed the family and friends of the 
dream and its details, before I had the first suspicion that the public 
press ever had contained or ever would contain a report of such an 
actual occurrence. 



EXAMPLES 143 

" If desirable I will make affidavit as to the truth of the substance 
of the narrative in your hands. 

" I enclose a few corroborative letters, the signatures to which I 
procured yesterday, February 19th. If these serve you, well and 
good. " Harry W. Wack." 

The following were the corroborative letters enclosed: — 

(1) "St. Paul, February 20th, 1892 

" Gentlemen, — Referring to an account of a dream submitted to 
you by Mr. Harry Wack of this city which I have read, I beg leave 
to add the following facts corroborative of the narrative. 

" After careful consideration of the article, I find that the story 
of the dream on December 29th-30th is in substance identical with 
that which was related by Mr. Wack at breakfast on the morning 
of December 30th, 1891. On that occasion Mr. Wack stated that 
he had been agitated the previous night by a dream of unusual 
features, and then, at the request of those present, he recited what 
now appears in his article, which I have just perused for the first 
time. On the evening of December 30th, 1891, when Mr. Wack 
discovered the newspaper item, he again mentioned the dream and 
called my attention to the newspaper item, and several of the family 
discussed the matter. On the morning of December 31st, another 
newspaper clipping bearing on the same matter was debated by the 
family. 

" Aside from the unusual features and hideousness of the dream, 
there was nothing to startle us, until the newspaper accounts de- 
veloped the affair in a mysterious sense. The first version of the 
dream was given in the morning of December 30th. The first 
newspaper dispatch appeared and was discovered in the evening of 
the same day. This I know of my own knowledge, being present 
on each occasion. 

" Mrs. Margaret B. Macdonald." 

(2) " St. Paul, Minn., February 20th, 1892 

" Gentlemen, — I have read the letter of Mrs. Macdonald, with 
whom I visited on December 29th, 30th, 31st, and days following, 



144 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

and with your permission I will say that I also was present at break- 
fast when Mr. Wack mentioned the dream, and at dinner (6 p.m.) 
when Mr. Wack called our attention to the newspaper item, which 
he then declared was a positive verification of the dream he ex- 
perienced the night before. I have read the account of the dream, 
and I believe it to be precisely as I understood it from Mr. Wack's 
account given on the morning of December 30th, 1891. 

" Rose B. Hamilton." 

(3) "St. Paul, February 20th, 1892 

" Gentlemen, — Having read the foregoing letters of Mrs. Mac- 
donald and Miss Rose B. Hamilton, and being familiar with the 
facts and incidents therein set forth, I would add my endorsement 
to them as being in strict accord with the truth. 

" Mr. Wack stated his dream as he has written of it in the article 
which I understand he has submitted to you, on the morning of 
December 30th, 189 1. He came upon and drew our attention to 
the newspaper articles in the evening of December 30th, and on the 
morning of December 31st, 1891. It was these newspaper dis- 
patches which made the dream interesting, and thereafter it was 
freely discussed. " C. E. McDonald." 

Mr. H. W. Smith, an Associate Member of the American Branch, 
writes to Dr. Hodgson in connection with the case: — 

" Office of Smith & Austrian, Commission Merchants, 
" 290, E., 6th Street, Produce Exchange, 

"St. Paul, Minn., April \\th, 1892 
" My Dear Sir, — It has been impossible for me to accept Mr. 
Wack's invitation to meet at his house the witnesses he cited in his 
communication to you. I have already written you of my preliminary 
interview with Mr. Wack, and it confirms in my own mind the high 
opinion which I previously held of him through our acquaintanceship, 
extending over a series of years. There is no reasonable doubt in my 
mind that the statement he makes is substantially correct, at least as 
respects any and all allegations of fact. Of course the application 



EXAMPLES 145 

of these facts to an unknown force is a matter upon wh'ch I cannot 
speak. " Herbert W. Smith." 



Instances like this are by no means solitary, and what- 
ever view we take of them we have to include them in the 
roll of facts demanding explanation — an explanation which 
may not be readily forthcoming. It may be presumed that 
as far as they go they make against the spiritistic hypothesis 
in any simple or direct form ; and what is why in a book like 
this it is necessary to emphasise them. 

Meanwhile all we are sure of is that information is ob- 
tained by some mediums which is entirely beyond their con- 
scious knowledge, and occasionally beyond the conscious 
knowledge of everyone present. But as to how this lucidity 
is attained we are as yet in the dark; though we must ul- 
timately proceed to consider the possibility that it is by some 
sort of actual communication from other intelligences, akin 
to the conveyance of information in the accustomed and 
ordinary human way, by rumour, by conversation, and by 
the press. 

Incidents that seem to point to some form of super- 
normal communication are exemplified in the experiments 
of Dr. van Eeden of Bussum, in Holland, with Mrs. 
Thompson at Hampstead, — a lady who is referred to more 
particularly in Section IV. of this book. (See his paper 
on sittings with Mrs. Thompson in Proceedings, S. P. R., 
vol. xvii., especially pp. 86-7 and 11 2-1 15). Dr. van 
Eeden, having cultivated the power of controlling his own 
dreams, so as to be able to dream of performing actions 
which he had planned while awake, arranged with Mrs. 
Thompson that he would occasionally call "Nelly" (her 
"control") in his dreams after returning to Holland, and 
that if she heard him calling she should tell Mr. Piddington, 



146 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

who was in charge of the sittings, at his next sitting. On 
three occasions, in January and February 1900, some success 
was obtained in these experiments; that is "Nelly" stated 
that she had heard Dr. van Eeden calling, and had been to 
see him; the dates she gave were approximately, though not 
exactly, the same as those recorded in his diary of dreams; 
but on each occasion she gave details, which were afterwards 
verified, as to his circumstances at the time. On a fourth 
occasion (April 19th, 1900), when " Nelly " stated that she 
had been to see Dr. van Eeden, he had no dream of her at 
the time, but she gave a description of his condition which 
corresponded with what it had been during the early part of 
the same month. 

A case of a somewhat similar kind is the one recorded 
in Dr. Hodgson's report on Mrs. Piper {Proceedings, vol. 
viii., p. 120), where Mr. M. N. in America relates that 
Mrs. Piper's control, " Dr. Phinuit," had said that he would 
visit Mr. N.'s dying father in England about certain matters 
connected with his will, and where later on it was reported 
by those attending the dying father that he had complained 
of the presence of an obtrusive old man. (This case is 
quoted on p. 149.) 



Clairvoyance of the Dying 

The extra lucidity of the dying is a thing so often asserted 
that it has become almost a commonplace, and sometimes, 
as in the case of children, it would seem to eclipse mere 
imagination — as for instance when a dying child welcomes, 
and appears to be welcomed by, its deceased mother. But 
these visions and auditions, which are unmistakably common, 
are usually of things beyond our ordinary cognisance, so 



EXAMPLES 147 

that for the most part they have to be relegated to the 
category of the unverifiable. Occasionally, however, we 
have records of a kind of clairvoyant faculty whereby 
terrestrial occurrences also are perceived by persons who 
in health had no such power; and these are worthy of at- 
tention, — especially those which are reciprocal, producing 
an impression at both ends of a terrestrial line, as if the 
telepathic and less material mode of communication had in 
their case already begun. 

The extant descriptions of dying utterances are very much 
like the utterances in the waking stages of Mrs. Piper's 
trance, to be subsequently mentioned — and these did not ap- 
pear to be random or meaningless sayings, but do really 
correspond to some kind of reality, since in them the appear- 
ance of strangers is frequently described correctly and 
messages are transmitted which have a definite meaning. 
Moreover, the look of ecstasy on Mrs. Piper's face at a 
certain stage of the waking process is manifestly similar 
to that seen on the faces of some dying people; and both 
describe the subjective vision as of something more beautiful 
and attractive than those of earth. 

Whether the dying really have greater telepathic power 
as agents, which is what is assumed in the ordinary 
telepathic explanation of Phantasms of the Living, is doubt- 
ful, but that they sometimes have greater sensibility as 
percipients seems likely; and sometimes the event which they 
are describing is likewise apprehended by another person at 
a distance, — thus appearing to demonstrate reciprocal tel- 
epathic influence. There is a small group of cases illustra- 
tive of the reciprocal clairvoyance of the dying, — I can only 
quote an illustrative case or two from the few which are 
well evidenced: i. e. } which come up to the standard of the 



148 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

Society for Psychical Research in this matter — but I omit 
the authentication in quoting them, and I also abbreviate, 
as I only here wish to indicate the kind of thing. 

The writer of the following account is Colonel B., a well- 
known Irish gentleman. He explains that his wife engaged 
to sing with her daughters a Miss X., who was training 
as a public singer but who ultimately did not come out in 
that capacity, having married a Mr. Z. 

Six or seven years afterwards Mrs. B., who was dying, 
in the presence of her husband spoke of voices she heard 
singing, saying that she had heard them several times that 
day, and that there was one voice among them which she 
knew, but could not remember whose voice it was. 

" Suddenly she stopped and said, pointing over my head," says 
Colonel B., " ' Why, there she is in the corner of the room ; it is 
Julia X.; she is coming on; she is leaning over you; she has her 
hands up; she is praying; do look; she is going.' I turned but could 
see nothing. Mrs. B. then said, ■ She is gone.' All these things 
[the hearing of singing and the vision of the singers] I imagined 
to be the phantasies of a dying person. 

" Two days afterwards, taking up the Times newspaper, I saw 
recorded the death of Julia Z., wife of Mr. Z. I was so astounded 

that in a day or so after the funeral I went up to and asked 

Mr. X. if Mrs. Z., his daughter, was dead. He said, 'Yes, poor 
thing, she died of puerperal fever. On the day she died she began 
singing in the morning, and sang and sang until she died.' " 

The case next quoted is a curious incident connected with 
a deceased child, obtained in one of the bereaved mother's 
sittings with Mrs. Piper in America, at a time when Phinuit 
was in control. 

It is the concluding portion of a long and striking series 
of communications, extremely characteristic of identity, which 
are quoted both in Human Personality, vol. ii., pp. 245-7, in 



EXAMPLES 149 

Proc, S. P. R., vol. xii., pp. 386-9. The mother's testi- 
mony is thus reported: — 

The remarks made at her second sitting suggest that " the little 
book " in the child's mind was not this one. " Kakie wants the little 
bit of a book mamma read by her bedside, with the pretty bright 
things hanging from it — mamma put it in her hands — the last 
thing she remembers." Mrs. Sutton states that this was a little 
prayer book with a cross and other symbols in silver attached to 
ribbons for marking the places, and that it was sent to her by a 
friend after Kakie had ceased to know any one except perhaps for a 
passing moment. Mrs. Sutton read it when Kakie seemed uncon- 
scious, and after Kakie s death placed it in her hands to prevent the 
blood settling in the nails. She adds later that Mrs. Piper's hands, 
when the book was asked for at the sitting, were put into the same 
position as Kakie's. 

There is also evidence of reciprocity of an unusual kind 
in connexion with the Piper case; for " Phinuit " has been 
described as perceived by a dying person at a distance, in 
correspondence with the assertion of Phinuit that he would 
go and talk to this same person about unfair clauses in his 
will. 

The account of this curious episode is from an American 
gentleman who had had a good deal of experience in Piper 
sittings, and who does not want his name disclosed. Of 
three examples of what he calls predictions, thus obtained, 
I select this one as it illustrates the kind of reciprocal ex- 
perience of which I am now speaking. The account is 
corroborated by Mrs. " M. N." 

April 5th, 1889 
. . . About the end of March of last year I made [Mrs. Piper] 
a visit (having been in the habit of doing so, since early in February, 
about once a fortnight). [As Phinuit] told me that a death of a 



ISO SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

near relative of mine would occur in about six weeks, from which I 
should realise some pecuniary advantages, I naturally thought of my 
father, who was advanced in years, and whose description Mrs. Piper 
had given me very accurately some week or two previously. She 
had not spoken of him as my father, but merely as a person nearly 
connected with me. I asked her at that sitting whether this person 
was the one who would die, but she declined to state anything more 
clearly to me. My wife, to whom I was then engaged, went to see 
Mrs. Piper a few days afterwards, and she told her (my wife) that 
my father would die in a few weeks. 

About the middle of May my father died very suddenly in London 
from heart failure, when he was recovering from a very slight attack 
of bronchitis, and the very day that his doctor had pronounced him 
out of danger. Previous to this Mrs. Piper (as Dr. Phinuit) had 
told me that she would endeavour to influence my father about certain 
matters connected with his will before he died. Two days after I 
received the cable announcing his death, my wife and I went to see 
Mrs. Piper, and she [Phinuit] spoke of his presence, and his sudden 
arrival in the spirit-world, and said that he (Dr. Phinuit) had en- 
deavoured to persuade him in those matters while my father was 
sick. Dr. Phinuit told me the state of the will, and described the 
principal executor, and said that he (the executor) would make a 
certain disposition in my favour, subject to the consent of the two 
other executors, when I got to London, England. Three weeks 
afterwards I arrived in London; found the principal executor to be 
the man Phinuit had described. The will went materially as he 
had stated. The disposition was made in my favour, and my sister, 
who was chiefly at my father's bedside the last three days of his life, 
told me that he had repeatedly complained of the presence of an 
old man at the foot of his bed, who annoyed him by discussing his 
private affairs. . . . 

("M. N.") 

A similar illustration of reciprocity occurred in the case 
of the lady called " Elisa Mannors," whose near relatives 



EXAMPLES 151 

and friends concerned in the communications were known 
also to Mr. Myers. 

On the morning after the death of her uncle, called F. 
in the report, she described an incident in connection with 
the appearance of herself to her uncle on his death-bed. 
Dr. Hodgson's account of this is in Proceedings, S. P. R., 
vol. xiii., p. 378, as follows: — 

The notice of his [F.'s] death was in a Boston morning paper, and 
I happened to see it on my way to the sitting. The first writing of 
the sitting came from Madame Elisa, without my expecting it. She 
wrote clearly and strongly, explaining that F. was there with her, 
but unable to speak directly, and that she wished to give an account 
of how she had helped F. to reach her. She said that she had been 
present at his death-bed, and had spoken to him, and she repeated 
what she had said, an unusual form of expression, and indicated that 
he had heard and recognised her. This was confirmed in detail in 
the only way possible at the time, by a very intimate friend of 
Madame Elisa and myself, and also of the nearest surviving relative 
of F. I showed my friend the account of the sitting; and to this 
friend, a day or two later, the relative, who was present at the death- 
bed, stated spontaneously that F, when dying saw Madame Elisa who 
was speaking to him, and he repeated what she was saying. The 
expression so repeated, which the relative quoted to my friend, was 
that which I had received from Madame Elisa through Mrs. Piper's 
trance, when the death-bed incident was, of course, entirely unknown 
to me. 



Writing of Foreign Languages 

Instances in which foreign languages unknown to the 
medium are written or spoken are comparatively rare. 

At a sitting in 1892, when Madame Elisa Mannors was 'com- 



152 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

municating,' some Italian was written by request, the lady being as 
familiar with Italian as with English, but only two or three common 
words were decipherable. The first names of sitter and communica- 
tor were given, and the last name was both written and afterwards 
given by G. P. to Phinuit. Some of the writing was of a personal 
character, and some about the watch [concerning which inquiry had 
been made] ; and G. P. stated correctly, inter alia, that the sitter's 
mother was present (in " spirit ") with the communicator, and that 
he himself did not know her. The real names are very uncommon. 
The Italian for " It is well, Patience " was whispered at the end of 
the sitting as though by direct control of the voice by Madame 
Elisa. 

Further attempts were made to speak and write Italian, 
but not much was said, and the writing was not very legible. 
Concerning this Dr. Hodgson remarks: — 

As I have mentioned elsewhere (Report, pp. 293, 332), 
the intelligence communicating by writing is not conscious of 
the act of writing. The chief difficulty apparently in getting 
another language written by the hand is that strange words 
tend to be written phonetically unless they are thought out 
slowly letter by letter. The writing is usually much more 
legible now than it was during the period of the records 
from which I am quoting, when there was frequently much 
diffculty in deciphering even the simplest English words. 
It was therefore not surprising that so little of the Italian 
written by Madame Elisa was decipherable. 

This does not appear to be a strong case, but the next 
one seems to me better: 

Dr. Hodgson reports the following case in a sitting which 
a Mr. Vernon Briggs had with Mrs. Piper in October 1893. 
(Proc. S. P. R., xiii., 337, or Hum. Pers. ii., 224.) 

The communication purported to come from a Honolulu boy 



EXAMPLES 153 

named Kalua, who became much attached to Mr. Briggs, during a 
six months' stay of Mr. Briggs in Honolulu in 1881, and who fol- 
lowed Mr. Briggs back to Boston under somewhat romantic cir- 
cumstances in 1883. He was soon sent back to his native island, 
but again returned to Boston, where he was shot in 1886, in a 
sailor's Bethel, whether intentionally or not was unknown. There 
was some suspicion against a Swede who was imprisoned, but there 
was no evidence against him, and he was finally discharged. The 
Swede said that Kalua had accidentally shot himself with a revolver, 
and eventually confessed that after the accident he had himself hid- 
den the revolver behind a flue, where, after taking part of the 
chimney down, it was found. Mr. Briggs had taken a handkerchief 
belonging to Kalua with him to the sitting. Kalua had been shot 
through the heart, and there was some confusion apparently about 
the locality of the suifering, " stomach " and " side " being men- 
tioned, under what appeared to be the direct control of the voice by 
" Kalua," and Mr. Briggs asked if it was Kalua. Phinuit then 
spoke for " Kalua," who said that he did not kill himself, that he 
had been gambling with the other man who disputed with him and 
shot him, but did not mean to, and who threw the revolver, " into 
the hot box where the pepples are" (meaning the "furnace" and 
the " coals "), and hid his purse under the steps where he was killed. 
" Kalua " also said there was shrubbery near it. The cellar of the 
house was examined, but no purse was found, and there was no 
shrubbery in the cellar. " Kalua " tried to write Hawaiian, but 
the only " ordinary " words deciphered were " lei " (meaning wreaths, 
which he made daily for Mr. Briggs) which was written clearly 
and frequently, and an attempt at " aloha "-greeting. Phinuit tried 
to get the answer to the question where Kalua's father was, but 
could only succeed in getting " Hiram." But the writing gave the 
answer " Hawaiian Islands." In reply to the question which one, 
the answer in writing was Kawai, but Phinuit said Tawai. The 
word is spelt Kawai, but is pronounced Tawai by the natives of the 
island itself and in the island where Kalua was born. The natives of 
the other islands call it Kawai. 



154 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

Cases in which the lucidity or clairvoyant faculty is not 
limited to the present but apparently anticipates the future 
are sufficiently important to deserve a separate chapter. It 
is extremely difficult to contemplate such a faculty. Hither- 
to we have dealt only with knowledge of the present and 
the past. 



CHAPTER X 

PREVISION 

BUT assertions are made that there is a kind of lucidity 
occasionally attainable by healthy people which is be- 
yond the powers of any ordinary intelligence, even 
aided by telepathy; inasmuch as knowledge is sometimes ex- 
hibited not only of occurrences at a distance but also of 
events which have not yet happened, and which could not 
by any process of reasoning be inferred. 

Is it possible to become aware of events before they have 
occurred, by means other than ordinary scientific prediction? 

The anticipation of future events is a power not at all 
necessarily to be expected on a Spiritistic or any other 
hypothesis ; it is a separate question, and will have important 
bearings of its own. An answer to this question in the 
affirmative may vitally affect our metaphysical notions of 
' Time," but will not of necessity have an immediate bear- 
ing on the existence in the universe of intelligences other 
than our own. A cosmic picture gallery (as Mr. Myers 
calls it), or photographic or phonographic record of all 
that has occurred or will occur in the universe, may conceiv- 
ably — or perhaps not conceivably — in some sense exist, 
and may be partly open and dimly decipherable to the lucid 
part of the automatist's or entranced person's mind. 

But the question for us now is whether we can obtain 
clear and unmistakable proof of the existence of this foresee- 
ing power in any form. It is not an easy thing to establish 
beyond any kind of doubt. Casual and irresponsible critics 



156 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

have said that documentary evidence, such as a postmark 
on a letter which detailed an event either not yet happened or 
certainly not known by ordinary methods at the date of the 
postmark (like a recent shipwreck in mid-ocean for in- 
stance), would be proof positive to them of something oc- 
cult. A writer in The Nineteenth Century goes so far as 
to say that a document thus officially verified by a Post 
Office Clerk would be worth thousands of pounds to the 
British Museum. If so it would be singularly easy to get 
rich. I believe that a postmark on an envelope would satisfy 
some of these critics, but a postmark on the document itself 
would be entirely convincing. 

I wonder some enterprising forger has not endeavoured 
to gull a leading journal by an elaborate account, say, of 
the Victoria disaster, or the Santander explosion, or the 
Messina earthquake, written on foolscap paper transmitted 
blank through the post, at small cost, in preparation for any 
such striking event; or perhaps on paper subsequently covered 
with previous postmarks by a genial Post Office friend, and 
decorated with red tape by a live Government clerk ! 

The feeling that everything done by a Post Office official 
is conclusive, is of the same order as the opinion that 
barristers or criminal judges or medical practitioners are the 
only people fit to investigate unusual mental phenomena, be- 
cause their practice makes them familiar with the warpings 
of the human mind. 

But to consider the case of a medical practitioner; as I 
understand a doctor's business, it is to cure an abnormality 
if he can, not to prolong and investigate it. True, a doctor 
may be a scientific man in addition, but qua physician he is 
out of his element as a general investigator, and as a leading 
practitioner he has very little spare time. Were it not so, 
the record against the profession — the attitude the main 



PREVISION 157 

body of doctors has taken or used to take to everything new 
— would be not only pitiful, as it is, but essentially disgrace- 
ful. To this day I expect that in some countries there are 
promising subjects, some for investigation and some for 
psychical cure, lost both to science and to themselves within 
the walls of asylums. 

But about this question of postmarks. Let it not be 
thought that I claim that their evidence is worthless. As 
evidence subsidiary to testimony they may be very valuable, 
and every effort should be made to get them ; my contention 
only is that they do not dispense with testimony. 

This I hold is the function of all circumstantial evidence, 
or of any automatic record; it lessens the chance of self- 
delusion or over-exuberant imagination, it can never be held 
to guard against fraud. If a couple of friends by inter- 
changing letters, with their dates verified in some cold 
blooded official manner, are able to establish foreknowledge 
of events such as could hardly be guessed or inferred, then 
their testimony is strengthened by the date-marks to this 
extent : — Either the things happened as they say, or they 
are in some sort of collusion to bear false witness and de- 
ceive. One could only grant them the loophole of self-de- 
ception on the alternative of something very like insanity. 

That is how these automatic records, photographs and 
the like, may be so valuable — as supplementary to human 
testimony — never as substitutes for it. 

Anticipation of Events 

Have we any trustworthy evidence at all as to the power 
of foreseeing unpredictable events? Strange to say, we 
have, but it is not yet sufficient in volume to justify any 
generalisation : it is only enough to cause us to keep an open 



158 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

mind, even in this direction, and be ready critically to 
scrutinise future evidence as it arrives. Mrs. Sidgwick's 
paper on the evidence for Premonitions is in vol. v. of 
Proceedings S. P. R. 

I attach no high importance to predictions of illness and 
death: they may represent an unusual power of diagnosis, 
but need not represent anything more. Besides, a great 
number of these predictions fail; so much so that a predic- 
tion of this kind now hardly perturbs an experienced person 
who receives it. 

And even the successful prevision of an accident must be 
attributed as a rule to accidental concordance unless it is 
accompanied by an exceptional amount of detail. 

The following case is contained in Mrs. Sidgwick's paper, 
Proceedings } vol. v., p. 333. It is from an engine-driver 
who was interviewed afterwards by an agent of the S. P. R. 
in America. 

[In 1853] I was firing a locomotive, a fine new passenger engine, 
built for speed, and just from the shop. I thought myself lucky to 
be on such a fine engine, and was proud of my position. One night, 
May 29th, 1853, I dreamed that the train ran through a shallow 
cut, and came out on a high stone bridge, over which the train 
passed, and then the engine turned over down the bank some 70 
feet, into the river. I mentioned my dream the next morning to the 
family with whom I was living. The lady [now dead] told me I 
was going to be killed, but I told her that in my dream I had as- 
surance that I should not be hurt. On the second morning after 
my dream, we were sent over a part of the road with which I was 
not familiar, and presently came to a shallow cut, and I saw a 
number of men ahead on the track. The engineer was near-sighted 
and did not see them. I called to him to stop the engine; he tried 
to do so, but the track was wet, and seeing that part of the track 
ahead had been taken up, he jumped from the engine. I remained 
on it and tried to stop it. Before this could be done, we were on 



PREVISION 159 

a stone bridge, and I could not get off. The engine left the track, 
and at the other end of the bridge turned over twice before it 
reached the bottom, and I with it, receiving but a small scratch, 
how I do not know. I climbed the bank, and looking back, saw 
just what I had seen in my dream. The bridge was 200 feet 
long, with five stone arches, 54 feet high, and the bank down 
which the engine rolled 70 feet. 

The Marmontel Case 

The perception of incidents at a distance is common 
enough, but the perception of incidents in the future is rare. 
The following selection from experiences of this kind re- 
ceived by Mrs. Verrall must serve as an example of the few- 
trustworthy cases I know of. (Proc. S. P. R., vol. xx., p. 

33i.) 

On December nth, 1901, — L e. } towards the end of the 

first year in which Mrs. Verrall had developed the power 
of automatic writing — her hand wrote as follows : — 

Nothing too mean, the trivial helps, gives confidence. Hence 
this. Frost and a candle in the dim light. Marmontel, he was read- 
ing on a sofa or in bed — there was only a candle's light. She will 
surely remember this. The book w T as lent, not his own — he talked 
about it. 

Then there appeared a fanciful but unmistakable attempt 
at the name Sidgwick. 

No meaning was conveyed by the above, but the conclud- 
ing effort naturally suggested that Mrs. Sidgwick should be 
applied to. This was done; and her reply, received on 
December 17th, said that she could make nothing of it but 
would report if the name Marmontel turned up. 

Mrs. Verrall was now away from home and had decided 
to abandon writing till her return. But all the 17th she 



160 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

was so disturbed by a desire to write that she made time, 
and that evening obtained the following: — 

1 wanted to write. Marmontel is right. It was a French book, 
a Memoir I think. Passy may help, Souvenirs de Passy, or Fleury. 
Marmontel was not on the cover — the book was bound and was 
lent — two volumes in old-fashioned binding and print. It is not 
in any papers — it is an attempt to make some one remember — an 
incident. 

Soon after my return to Cambridge — Mrs. Verrall, re- 
ports — about December 25th, 1901, I was looking through 
a list of books — which I had glanced at before December 
nth — and found an advertisement of "Marmontel, 
Moral Tales, selected and translated by G. Saintsbury." 
This, strange though such an admission may seem, was, as 
far as I could remember, my first conscious knowledge of 
Marmontel as a French writer. 

So ends the record of the obtaining of the script. The 
sentence in the first portion: " She will surely remember 
this " is a characteristic sotto voce remark which is not in- 
frequent in these scripts, — having the same sort of significa- 
tion as the terminal sentence of the second portion. It 
means that Mrs. Verrall herself will surely remember hav- 
ing obtained the writing, when at some future time the in- 
cident described is referred to. 

Now begins the verification by quite unexpected means. 

In January 1902 Mrs. Verrall happened to write to a 
friend of hers named Mr. Marsh, asking him to come for 
a week-end visit; and he replied fixing March 1st. She 
had had no recent communication with him since June 1901. 
On February 23rd she sent him a post card to remind him 
of his visit, and he replied with a letter on February 24th. 

Mrs. Verrall then reports as follows : — 



PREVISION 161 

On March ist Mr. Marsh arrived, and that evening at 
dinner he mentioned that he had been reading Marmontel. 
I asked if he had read the Moral Tales, and he replied that 
it was the Memoirs. I was interested in this reference to 
Marmontel, and asked Mr. Marsh for particulars about his 
reading, at the same time explaining the reasons for my 
curiosity. He then told me that he got the book from the 
London Library, and took the first volume only to Paris 
with him, where he read it on the evening of February 20th, 
and again on February 21st. On each occasion he read 
by the light of a candle ; on the 20th he was in bed, on the 
2 1 st lying on two chairs. He talked about the book to 
the friends with whom he was staying in Paris. The 
weather was cold, but there was, he said, no frost. The 
London Library copy is bound, as most of their books are, 
not in modern binding, but the name " Marmontel " is on 
the back of the volume. The edition has three volumes; in 
Paris Mr. Marsh had only one volume, but at the time of 
his visit to us he had read the second also. 

I asked him whether " Passy " or " Fleury " would 
"help," and he replied that Fleury's name certainly oc- 
curred in the book, in a note; he was not sure about Passy, 
but undertook to look it up on his return to town, and to 
ascertain, as he could by reference to the book, what part 
of the first volume he had been reading in Paris. He is in 
the habit of reading in bed, but has electric light in his bed- 
room at home, so that he had not read " in bed or on a 
sofa by candlelight " for months, until he read Marmontel 
in Paris. 

On his return to town Mr. Marsh wrote to me (March 4, 
1902), that on February 21st while lying on two chairs he 
read a chapter in the first volume of Marmontel's Memoirs 
describing the finding at Passy of a panel, etc., connected 
with a story in which Fleury plays an important part. 

It will thus be noted that the script in December, 1901, 
describes (as [presumably] past) an incident which actually 
occurred two and a half months later, in February, 1902, — 
an incident which at the time of writing was not likely to 
have been foreseen by any one. I ascertained from Mr. 



1 62 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

Marsh that the idea of reading Marmontel occurred to him 
not long before his visit to Paris. It is probable that had 
he not seen me almost immediately upon his return, when his 
mind was full of the book, I should never have heard of his 
reading it, and therefore not have discovered the application 
of the scripts of December nth and 17th. 

The description is definite, and in the main accurate. 
There are, however, errors : — Though the weather was 
cold, it does not seem to have been actually freezing on 
either of the two nights in question; the book was not in 
two volumes only, as seems implied, though only two 
volumes had been read when the incident was related to me; 
the name Marmontel was on the back of the book, though 
not on the face of the cover; the binding, though not modern, 
can hardly be described as old fashioned. But the reference 
to Passy and Fleury — names which, so far as I can dis- 
cover are not together in any passage of Marmontel's 
Memoirs except that read by Mr. Marsh on February 21st 
— is a precise and, I think, remarkable coincidence. 

Two other points may be noted : — 

(1) That the script on December 17th did not accept 
the suggestion that the name Marmontel had anything to 
do with Mrs. Sidgwick; 

(2) The omission to give any name to the reader of 
Marmontel. 

This latter kind of reticence is characteristic of the script; 
and although it may be superficially regarded from a sar- 
castic point of view it is really essential to the verification of 
the prevision, because if Mr. Marsh's name had been given, 
Mrs. Verrall would naturally have written to him a 
premature inquiry, which would have spoilt the whole thing. 

But inasmuch as she had no inkling of Mr. Marsh in 
connexion with it, that gentleman was left unconsciously to 
carry out the anticipation, entirely ignorant of it and unin- 
fluenced by it. 



PREVISION 163 

The anticipation received in December was fulfilled in 
February and was reported on in March. 

The fact that the anticipation was received in December 
is proved by the preservation of Mrs. Sidgwick's letter of 
December 17th saying that she could make nothing of it, 
but that if the name turned up in some manuscripts she was 
then reading she would let Mrs. Verrall know. 

Discussion of Possibility 

In his book Mr. Myers contemplated the occurrence of 
prevision, and dealt with it in many an eloquent passage. 
The following is too eloquent for the incident just quoted, 
but it serves to illustrate his view of the possibility of such 
things : — 

Few men have pondered long on these problems of Past 
and Future without wondering whether Past and Future be 
in very truth more than a name — whether we may not be 
apprehending as a stream of sequence that which is an ocean 
of co-existence, and slicing our subjective years and centuries 
from timeless and absolute things. The precognitions dealt 
with here, indeed, hardly overpass the life of the individual 
percipient. Let us keep to that small span, and Jet us 
imagine that a whole earth-life is in reality an absolutely 
instantaneous although an infinitely complex phenomenon. 
Let us suppose that my transcendental self discerns with 
equal directness and immediacy every element of this 
phenomenon ; but that my empirical self receives each element 
mediately and through media involving different rates of 
retardation ; just as I receive the lightning more quickly than 
the thunder. May not then seventy years intervene be- 
tween my perceptions of birth and death as easily as seven 
seconds between my perceptions of the flash and the peal? 
And may not some inter-communication of consciousness 
enable the wider self to call to the narrower, the more 



1 64 SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY 

central to the more external, " At such an hour this shock 
will reach you! Listen for the nearing roar! " 

But let us consider whether there is any way of regarding 
the fulfilment of a meaningless anticipation — such as this 
of the Marmontel case, just quoted — without trenching on 
so difficult a question as the reality of time? 

I can only suggest something of the nature of hypnotic 
suggestion, automatically effected. An outside or, let us 
say, a subliminal intelligence gets the record made by Mrs. 
Verrall that an unspecified man will read Marmontel on 
a frosty night lying on a sofa by candle light, etc., and then 
sets to work to try and secure that within the next two or 
three months some man shall do it — some one who is 
sufficiently a friend of Mrs. Verrall to make it reasonably 
likely that in subsequent conversation she may sooner or 
later hear of the circumstance. 

I make the suggestion for what it is worth, as the only 
way that occurs to me of avoiding still more difficult no- 
tions; — provided of course we do not dismiss the whole 
thing as invention — which is preposterous, — or as chance, 
which in my judgment is put out of court by the amount 
of detail, and by other incidents of the same general nature 
as this one which have also occurred in Mrs. Verrall's script. 

It may be asked what possible object there can be in thus 
predicting a perfectly unimportant and commonplace inci- 
dent. 

The object, to those associated with the work of the 
Society for Psychical Research is manifest enough. 

During the lifetime of Professor Sidgwick and Mr. 
Myers we often discussed what sort of evidence could be 
regarded as conclusive as to the existence of supernormal, 
even if not posthumous, intelligence. And it was agreed 



PREVISION 165 

that prediction of future events of an insignificant kind, 
such as could not be inferred or deduced by however wide 
a knowledge of contemporary events, — incidents which 
were outside the range of any amount of historical or mathe- 
matical or political skill, — would be conclusive, if obtained 
in quantity sufficient to eliminate chance. It did not at all 
follow that such anticipations were possible, — so far as we 
could tell they might be beyond not only normal but super- 
normal powers, — but if possible it was realised that they 
would be singularly satisfactory. 

Accordingly it is eminently characteristic of an intelli- 
gence purporting to be associated in any way with the late 
Professor Sidgwick or the late Mr. Myers that attempts 
of that kind should be made. Several attempts have now 
been made with more or less success, and I have selected 
one of them. Others will be found in Mrs. Verrall's paper 
Proceedings, vol. xx.) in the chapter called " Future 
Events." 



SECTION IV 
AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 



CHAPTER XI 

AUTOMATIC WRITING AND TRANCE SPEECH 

WE now enter upon the more detailed consideration 
of a group of facts, in which of late years the 
Society has been remarkably prolific — and the 
general truth of which is accepted without hesitation by all 
the prominent members; who, though they differ in their 
interpretation, yet receive the evidence with practical una- 
nimity as to its intferest and importance — receive it, that 
is to say, with all the unanimity that we desire or expect. 

At the end of the last chapter we were discussing the pos- 
sibility of the rather vague and ill-defined hypothesis that 
vistas of unlimited information lie open to people in a clair- 
voyant state, as if during unconsciousness a psychical region 
were entered wherein the ordinary barriers between soul 
and soul, or mind and mind, are broken down. Even this 
surmise must not be rejected without examination, if we 
are driven to it, but it is not a known vera causa. A hy- 
pothesis of this kind is referred to at the end of Chapter 
VIII. 

Naturally it is only when all normal means of obtaining 
information have been scrupulously avoided that any prob- 
lem arises; and the first hypothesis that must be made, when- 
ever normal explanations thoroughly break down, is that 
telepathy of some kind is occurring from some living person 
and is influencing the sensitive mind or brain of the un- 
conscious or partially unconscious operator, after the fashion 
of an objectified and sympathetic dream. 

169 



170 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

This hypothesis is extremely elastic, and can be stretched 
to cover an immense area; indeed, to get beyond it, and 
definitely find a region which it will not cover, is exceedingly 
difficult. For twenty years at least members of the society 
have been intimately acquainted with excellent and astonish- 
ing examples of trance speaking and automatic writing, and 
yet they have hesitated to make full use of all this material, 
and have refrained from proceeding in the direction towards 
which it undoubtedly points, so long as there was a chance 

— even a remote chance — that an established variety of 
telepathy or some extension of it might constitute a suffi- 
cient explanation. Some of us hold that telepathy from liv- 
ing people is still sufficient — or at least as sufficient as it 
has ever been — and that no further step beyond it need 
be taken. Others are beginning to be impressed with the 
idea — not without qualms and surviving hesitation — that 
the time has come, or is coming, when it may be legitimate 
and necessary to take a further step, and to admit, at any 
rate as a tentative hypothesis, the view which undoubtedly 
the phenomena themselves suggest, — the view they have all 
the time been, as it were, piercing upon us. This is the 
hypothesis of actual telepathic or telergic influence from 
some outside intelligence — the surviving intelligence, ap- 
parently, of some of those who have recently lived on this 
planet, and who are now represented as occasionally, under 
great difficulties and discouragements, endeavouring to make 
known the fact that they can communicate with us, by aid 
of such intervening mechanism as is placed at their disposal 

— namely, the brain, nerve and muscle of an automatist or 
medium. The assertion made is that, during the temporary 
suspension of the normal control, discarnate intelligences can 
with difficulty make use of these organs for the purpose of 
translating their own thought into mechanical movement, 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 171 

and so producing some kind of speech or writing in the 
physical world. Such utilisation of physiological apparatus, 
by an intelligence to which it does not normally belong, is 
what is called motor automatism, or " telergy," or popularly 
— when of an extreme kind — " possession." 

It does not by any means follow that the agent or intelli- 
gence, active in this unusual experience, is necessarily that 
of a departed person, but that is undoubtedly the form which 
the phenomenon often takes; so if we resign ourselves to 
be guided by it at all, we may as well try how far the 
claim openly and persistently made will carry us, before 
definitely discarding it. And if we are going to try it at 
all, I urge that we had better try it frankly and thoroughly : 
it had better be accepted provisionally as a working 
hypothesis and pressed as far as it will go. That is the 
way to test any provisional hypothesis. Hesitate as long 
as you like before giving a theory even provisional and ten- 
tative acceptance; but once having determined on testing a 
key or theoretical solution, then utilise it to the utmost. 
Try it in all the locks; and if it continually fails to open 
them, reject it; but do not hesitate each time over the in- 
sertion of the key. Hesitate before accepting a working 
hypothesis, not after. If false, its falseness will become 
apparent by its failure and inability to fit the facts. 

Mr. Myers himself pointed out in Human Personality, 
vol. i. p. 250, that if we allow ourselves to contemplate such 
a hypothesis it will at least fit in with many other facts; 
the innovation that we are called upon to make is to suppose 
that segments of the personality can operate in apparent 
separation from the organism. 

" Such a supposition, of course, could not have been started 
without proof of telepathy, and could with difficulty be sus- 
tained without proof of survival of death. But, given telep- 



172 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

athy, we have some psychical agency, connected with man, 
operating apart from his organism. Given survival, we 
have an element of his personality — to say the least of it — 
operating when his organism is destroyed. There is there- 
fore no very great additional burden in supposing that an 
element of his personality may operate apart from his or- 
ganism, while that organism still exists. 

" Ce n' } est que le premier pas qui coute. If we have once 
got a man's thought operating apart from his body — if my 
fixation of attention on the two of diamonds does somehow 
so modify another man's brain a few yards off that he seems 
to see the two of diamonds floating before him — there is 
no obvious halting place on his side till we come to " posses- 
sion " by a departed spirit, and there is no obvious halting 
place on my side till we come to " travelling clairvoyance," 
with a corresponding visibility of my own phantasm to other 
persons in the scenes which I spiritually visit." 

Mind and Body 

So let us consider in the first place what occurs during 
the ordinary process of speaking or writing — speaking or 
writing of the most normal or commonplace kind. An idea 
is conceived in the mind, but in order to achieve some effect 
in the material world it must move matter. The move- 
ment or rearrangement of matter is all that we ourselves 
are able to accomplish in the physical universe : the whole 
of our direct terrestrial activities resolve themselves into this, 
the production of changes of motion. 

But a thought belongs to a different order of existence, 
— whatever it is, it is not material; it is neither matter nor 
force; it has no direct power over matter; directly and un- 
aided it can move nothing. How then can it get itself 
translated in terms of motion? How can it, from the 
psychical category, produce a physical effect? 

Physiology informs us, not indeed of the whole manner 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 173 

of the achievement, but of part at least of the method. 

The thing that can move matter is called muscle. In 
muscle is located the necessary energy, which only requires 
to be stimulated into activity in order to be transformed into 
visible motion and transferred in any required direction. 

In a living body means are provided for stimulating its 
muscles, in the shape of an intricate arrangement of nerve 
fibres, which, when themselves excited in one of many ways, 
can cause the muscle to contract. This part of the process 
is not indeed fully understood, but it is familiarly known. 
The excitation of the nerves may be a mere random tweak- 
ing, or irritation, by a mechanical or electric goad; but in 
a living organism it can also be produced in a more mean- 
ingful and economical fashion, by the discharge of energy 
from a central cell, such as exists in the cortex or grey mat- 
ter of the brain. This process may also be considered as 
comparatively though not completely understood : the central 
ganglion is clearly the direct means of getting the nerve ex- 
cited, the muscle contracted, and the direct motion produced. 
But what is it that stimulates the brain? What is it that 
desires the particular motion and liberates energy from the 
appropriate brain cell? In some cases it is mere reflex ac- 
tion; it is some stimulus which has arrived from the periph- 
eral nerve-endings, so as to evoke response in a central 
ganglion — say, in the spine or the cerebellum ; whence the 
stimulus has proceeded to a neighbouring cell and so to the 
efferent nerve fibres. In that case no consciousness is in- 
volved; the psychical element is absent; there is no intelli- 
gence or will in the process, nor any necessary sensation. 
The wriggling of a worm, and many contortions of the 
lower animals, may be — shall we say may be hoped to be? 
— of this order. 

But I am not taking the case of reflex and unconscious 



i 7 4 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

action; I am definitely postulating a thought or idea con- 
ceived in the mind — operating, so to speak, on the will 
— and determining that there shall be a response in the 
material world. By what means the stimulus gets out of 
the psychical region into the physical, and liberates energy 
from the brain centre, I have not the remotest idea; nor, I 
venture to say, has any one. 

The operation is at present mysterious. But conspicu- 
ously it occurs; it is evidently a rational and I should say 
an ultimately intelligible process, — a process, that is to say, 
on which discovery is possible, though at present there has 
been no discovery concerning it. Somehow or other the 
connexion is established; and by long habit it seems to be 
established in normal cases without difficulty — nay, rather 
with singular ease, as when a pianist executes in miraculous 
fashion a complicated sonata. 

Things may go wrong, energy may be liberated in the 
wrong direction, the wrong muscles may be stimulated, so 
that stammering and contortions result. Or the mental con- 
nexion may be in a state of suspense, the mind may be un- 
able to get at the right centre, so to speak, and may refrain 
from acting on any for a time; in which case we have hesi- 
tation, aphasia, feebleness of many kinds, up to paralysis. 
Or these effects may be due to faults and dislocation in the 
physiological mechanism, — faults which can perhaps be dis- 
covered and set right. If the brain centres are fatigued, 
also, the response is weak and uncertain. But when every- 
thing physiological is in good health, and when the conscious 
self is in good condition, with a definite thought that it 
wants to convey, then it appears to be able to play upon the 
brain, as the musician plays upon a keyboard, and to get its 
psychical content translated into terms of mechanical mo- 
tion; so that other intelligences, sufficiently sympathetic and 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 175 

suitably provided with receptive mechanism, can be made 
more or less aware of the idea intended to be conveyed. 
Which means that, by aid of their nerve fibres and brain 
centres, mechanical movements can be translated back into 
thought once more. 

That is the usual process, from mind to mind through 
physiological apparatus and physical mechanism. The 
physical mechanism is a neutral intermediary of non-living 
matter, belonging to nobody; or rather belonging equally 
to everybody. We can all throw the air into vibration; 
and at some public meetings everybody does so, at one and 
the same time, with some resulting confusion. We can all 
write with ink; and if need be we can dip our pens into 
our neighbour's inkstand and use his desk, though with some 
loss of convenience; — we find it difficult to lay our hands 
upon his notepaper, and it is not efficacious if, on findnig 
his cheque-book, we proceed to fill up and sign his cheques. 
The identity of the scribe then becomes an important con- 
sideration. Pretended identity in such cases may perturb 
the social conscience, and be stigmatised not merely as un- 
recognised and wrongful possession, but as fraud. 

Thus of all existing forms of matter there are certainly 
some which can be used intelligently though temporarily by 
people to whom they do not belong. But whatever may 
be the undiscriminating communism of the main part of the 
physical universe, the physiological part is undoubtedly ap- 
propriated by individuals; body No. 1 belongs definitely to 
operator No. 1, and body No. 2 to operator No. 2. And 
the common idea — I might say the common-sense idea — 
is that operator No. 1 is entirely limited to control over 
his own physiological apparatus, and has no means of 
getting at the apparatus of another person, in any direct 
manner, or otherwise than through neutral physical means. 



176 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

That is the natural prima facie notion, based upon ordinary 
experience; but it need not be exactly true or complete, — 
facts may turn up which suggest something different or sup- 
plementary. 

As a matter of fact, telepathy has suggested — without 
any necessary reference to the physiological part of the bus- 
iness — that mind can act directly on mind, and can thereby 
indirectly operate on the physical world through the or- 
ganism of another person. But cases also occur where the 
mind of the second person appears to be left out of the pro- 
cess altogether; he may be thinking his own thoughts or do- 
ing nothing particular, — in a state of unconsciousness 
perhaps, or at any rate of inattention, — and yet his physio- 
logical mechanism may be set in action, and his physical 
neighbourhood affected in such a way as to suggest a stimu- 
lus proceeding not from himself at all, but from the mind 
of another person; who in this case must be conceived as 
operating not upon the second mind, but directly upon its 
brain. Or if not upon the brain, then perhaps upon some 
other portion of the nervous system, — say, upon spinal or 
other ganglia not essentially or necessarily associated with 
consciousness, and not arousing any consciousness, but stimu- 
lating the parts usually controlled by the subconsciousness, 
— the parts which regulate the beating of the heart, the 
respiration of the lungs, the digestion or secretions of the 
body. 

Assuming that such a thing is possible, assuming that a 
mind can operate, not only as usual on its own body, not 
only telepathically as supposed on another mind, but directly 
and telergically upon another body, then that is exactly what 
is meant by a case of incipient or partial possession. 

So far, it may be said, we have no a priori reason to 
doubt its occurrence, and no a priori reason to expect it. 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 177 

We know nothing about the connexion between mind and 
body except that the brain is the specially appropriate organ 
or instrument for the purpose ; and accordingly we are not en- 
titled to any a priori views. We know that each organism 
is usually appropriated by, and belongs to, the special 
psychical character or unit which commonly employs it ; just 
as a violin belongs to a special operator, who might resent 
any other person, especially a novice, attempting to play 
upon it. The desk of an author is his private property, 
from which a certain class of literature usually emanates; 
and he might not like to see it used for works of fiction, or 
scandalous gossip, or the advocacy of vaccination, or vege- 
tarianism, or Christian Science, or tariff reform. But that 
proves nothing as to the impossibility of so utilising it. The 
power may exist, but may be in abeyance, or be recognised as 
inappropriate and inconvenient, or even as dangerous and 
illegal. 

But if the power exist, it is a fact worth knowing. If it 
is possible for the normal operator to go out for a walk 
and leave his writing mechanism open to the casual tramp 
or the enterprising visitor, it is a definite fact that we may 
as well know about. 

Now as to the power of dislocation or suspension of the 
usual connexion between mind and body, it is supposed more 
or less to occur during sleep ; it is certainly supposed to occur 
during trance; and, in case of what is called travelling clair- 
voyance, it would appear to be in some sort a demonstrable 
fact. 

Anyhow, it is orthodox — not scientifically orthodox, but 
religiously orthodox — to maintain that the connexion be- 
tween ourselves and our organism is only temporary, and 
that at what we call " death " we shall give up this material 
mode of manifestation for ever: so that the body resolves 



178 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

itself into its original elements. And it is usually supposed 
that, after having lost control of our appropriate and nor- 
mally possessed bodily organs, even though we still persist as 
psychical entities, we have, in our new state, no means of 
operating upon the physical world. No more can we move 
pieces of matter; no more can we stimulate ideas in the 
minds of our friends when we are " dead." No, not unless 
one of three things happens. 

First, the telepathic power may continue; and we may 
operate directly on their conscious or unconscious minds, 
in such a way as to cause them to produce some physical 
effect or record, by normal means, through their own accus- 
tomed mechanism. 

Second, a materialising power may continue, analogous 
to that which enabled us, when here on the planet, to assimi- 
late all sorts of material, to digest it and arrange it into 
the organism that served us as a body. It is extraordinarily 
difficult to conceive of such a power, and impossible to sup- 
pose that it can be a direct power of a psychical agency un- 
aided by the reproductive activity of any other unit already 
incarnate; because such a power would imply a control of 
mind over matter which by hypothesis we conceive does not 
in fact exist, save through the mechanism of a brain. Such 
action we might well consider to be miracle. 

Still something of the kind has been asserted to occur; 
though always, I believe, in the presence of some peculiarly 
disposed organism or medium. 

Thirdly, a telergic power, analogous to that which we 
have already supposed occasionly active, may exist; enabling 
the psychical unit to detect and make use of some fully de- 
veloped physiological mechanism, not belonging to it — a 
fully developed brain, shall we say, with nerves and muscles 
complete; — so that, during temporary vacation by the usual 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 179 

possessor, these may be utilised for a time, and may achieve^ 
in an unpractised and more or less blundering fashion, some 
desired influence upon the physical world. In such a case 
the operator may be understood as contriving to utter in 
speech or writing something like the message which he in- 
tends to convey to his otherwise occupied and inaccessible 
but still beloved friends. 

Affection need not be the only motive, however, which 
causes a given operator to take all the trouble, and go 
through the process of using other people's writing materials, 
— at the risk of rousing superstition and fright or be- 
ing ejected by medical treatment. Occasionally it may be 
a scientific interest surviving from the time in this life when 
he was a keen and active member of the S. P. R. ; so that he 
desires above all things to convey to his friends, engaged 
on the same quest, some assurance, not only of his continued 
individual existence, — in which, on religious grounds, they 
may imagine that they already believe, — but of his reten- 
tion of a power to communicate indirectly and occasionally 
with them, and to produce movements even in the material 
world, — by kind permission of an organism, or part of an 
organism, the temporary use or possession of which has been 
allowed him for that purpose. 

Identity 

The question of identity is of course a fundamental one. 
The control must prove his identity mainly by reproducing 
facts which belong to his memory and not to that of the 
automatist. And notice that proof of identity will usually 
depend on the memory of trifles. The objection, frequently 
raised, that communications too often relate to trivial sub- 
jects, shows a lack of intelligence, or at least of due thought, 



180 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

on the part of the critic. The object is to get, not some- 
thing dignified, but something evidential : and what evidence 
of persistent memory can be better than the recollection of 
trifling incidents which for some personal reason happen to 
have made a permanent impression? Do we not ourselves 
remember domestic trifles more vividly than things which 
to the outside world seem important? Wars and corona- 
tions are affairs read of in newspapers — they are usually 
too far public to be of use as evidence of persistent identity ; 
but a broken toy, or a family joke, or a schoolboy adventure, 
has a more personal flavour, and is of a kind more likely to 
be remembered in old age, or after a rending shock. 

In fiction this is illustrated continually. Take the case 
of identification of the dumb and broken savage, apparently 
an Afghan prowler, in The Man Who Was. What was it 
that opened the eyes of the regiment, to which he had 
crawled back from Siberia, to the fact that twenty years 
ago he was one of themselves? Knowledge of a trick-catch 
in a regimental flower-vase, the former position of a trophy 
on the wall, and the smashing of a wineglass after a loyal 
toast. That is true to life: it is probably true to death also. 

That is the kind of evidence which we ought to expect, 
and that is the kind of evidence which not infrequently we 
get. We have not been able to hold it sufficient, however. 
The regiment in Kipling's tale never thought of unconscious 
telepathy from themselves, as spoiling the testimony to be 
drawn from the uncouth savage's apparent reminiscence : 
such an explanation would have been rightly felt to have 
been too forced and improbable, and exaggeratedly sceptical. 
But when it comes to proof of surviving existence and of 
memory beyond the tomb, we are bound to proceed even to 
this length, and to discount the witness of anything that is 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 181 

in our minds; or, as some think, in the mind of any living 
person. 

Thus is the difficulty of incontrovertible proof of identity 
enormously increased. Even when the evidence enables a 
hidden thing to be discovered of which no one living pos- 
sessed the secret — as in Swedenborg's discovery of the dead 
burgomaster's private papers previously quoted, deferred 
telepathy is sometimes adduced as preferable to what must 
then seem to most, as it did to Swedenborg, if not to Kant, 
the only rational explanation. 



CHAPTER XII 

PERSONAL IDENTITY 

IN illustration of the remarks made at end of last chapter, 
the following is a favourable instance of the mode in 
which evidence is given to prove identity in cases of 
automatic writing: it was described by Mr. Stainton Moses 
to Edmund Gurney and F. W. H. Myers, while it was still 
fresh, on his first meeting with them, May 9th, 1874. It 
is to be understood that he was an automatic writer, and 
one of those who could as it were " converse " with the 
script as it emanated from his own unconscious hand. He 
was accustomed to write a conscious question and then to 
receive an unconscious or subliminal answer — his hand 
being apparently guided by an intelligence not his own. 
The record runs thus : — 

On the evening of April 8th, 1874, while at Bedford with his father 
and mother, Mr. Stainton Moses, who had been receiving 
messages about ancient religions during the day, began to 

ask a question, " I should like ," when a meaningless 

drawing was made in place of intended words. 

Q. What is all that? And why was I stopped? 

A. " A spirit wished to communicate, and we are commanded to 
permit her. She is not able to write with ease, but will 
communicate through us. Her name is Fanny Westoby. 
Do you know the name ? " 

Q. I do not remember. 

A. " Your mother knows her well. She is a cousin of hers. She 
passed from your earth May 15th last." 

182 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 183 

Q. Was she married? 

A. " Yes, her maiden name was Kirkham." 

Q. Fanny Kirkham. Yes, I have a dim remembrance. She used 
to live at Markby. 

A, " She says that she was born in Alford, in the house now occu- 
pied by Sam Stevenson. She then lived at Markby, and, 
having married, at Belchford. She passed away at Horn- 
castle, at 63 years of age. You do not remember her, when, 
in the year 1845, you went to see her at Markby. Her 
mother, Elizabeth Kirkham, was then just released from a 
lingering illness, and your mother had gone to condole with 
her cousin. You were taken round the farm, and rode on a 
goat (she is anxious on this point), and she threw you in 
sport into a heap of wheat which was being threshed. The 
result was that you were severely bitten by the harvest bug. 
She is very anxious that you should recall this to your mother." 

Q. 1 will, but is it wise? 

A. " You will not be able to induce her to search into this matter, 
but you may satisfy yourself that what is said is true." 

Q. Has she any message? 

A. " She says, ' I lost much of my opportunity for progress through 
the gratification of bodily appetite, which cast me back. My 
course of progress is yet to come. I find my present life 
not very different from yours. I am nearly the same. I 
wish I could influence Mary, but I can't get near her.' " 

Q. Can she assure me that she is F. W.? 

A. " She can give you no further evidence. Stay, ask your father 
about Donnington and the trap-door." 

Q. I have not the least idea what she means. All the better. I 
will ask. Any more? Is she happy? 

A. " She is as happy as may be in her present state." 

Q. How did she find me out? 

A. " She came by chance, hovering near her friend [Le. Mrs. Moses] 
and discovered that she could communicate. She will return 
now." 

Q. Can I help her? 



1 84 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

A. " Yes, pray. She and all of us are helped when you devote 
your talents willingly to aid us." 

Q. What do you mean? 

A. " In advocating and advancing our mission with care and judg- 
ment. Then we are permeated with joy. May the Supreme 
bless you. f Rector." 

On this Mr. Stainton Moses comments thus : — I have 
inquired of my mother and find the particulars given are 
exactly true. She wonders how I remember things that oc- 
curred when I was only 5 years old ! I have not ventured 
to say how I got the information, believing that it would be 
unwise and useless. My father I can get nothing out of 
about the trap-door. He either does not remember, or will 
not say. 

April 9th, 1874. My father has remembered this inci- 
dent. 'A trap-door led on to the roof in the house he occu- 
pied at Donnington. The house was double roofed and 
a good view could be had from it. F. K. on a visit wanted 
to go there, and got fixed halfway, amid great laughter. 

[We have verified Mrs. Westoby's death in the Register 
of Deaths.— F. W. H. M.] 

It is indeed seldom that particulars of date, place and 
circumstance are given so glibly and fully as this. Com- 
municators themselves usually appear confused about these 
more precise details; but an ostensible reporter, having ob- 
tained the information from them at leisure, can sometimes 
quote it through an automatist with fair accuracy, as in the 
case above. 

Another striking case is that of the lady known here as 
" Blanche Abercromby"; though in this case the conceal- 
ment of real name removes some of the interest that would 
otherwise be felt in it. When the communication arrived 
through Mr. Stainton Moses's hand he was not aware of 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 185 

her death — nor did he know her at all well ; in fact he had 
only met her and her husband once at some seance and had 
been annoyed at the strongly expressed disbelief of her hus- 
band in the possibility of such things. 

The communicating purports to be a hasty amende, at the 
earliest, posthumous, opportunity. Mr. Myers examined 
this case carefully, being much interested in some features of 
it. The pages of the notebook in which the writing occurred 
had been gummed down and marked " private," nor had 
they apparently been mentioned to any one at the time. 
But years later, after the death of Mr. Stainton Moses, this 
and other books came into Mr. Myers's hands, and with the 
consent of the executors he opened this portion. 

He was surprised to find a written communication entirely 
characteristic of a lady known to him, here called Blanche 
Abercromby, who had died on a Sunday afternoon about 
twenty-five years ago at a country house about two hundred 
miles from London. He found that it was on the very same 
evening near midnight that the supernormal intimation of 
the death had reached Mr. Stainton Moses at his secluded 
lodgings in the north of London: and that afterwards the 
lady had ostensibly written a few lines herself. The evi- 
dence of the handwriting, which was in one point peculiar, 
is specifically testified to, not only by Mr. Myers, but by a 
member of the family, and by an expert (see Human Per* 
sonality, vol. ii., p. 231, or Proc. } S. P. R., xi., 96 et seq.). 
It is unlikely that Mr. Moses had ever seen her writing. 

The chances necessary to secure a verification of this case 
were more complex that can here be fully explained. This 
lady, who was quite alien to these researches, had been dead 
about twenty years when her posthumous letter was discov- 
ered in Mr. Moses's private notebook by one of the very few 
surviving persons who had both known her well enough to 



1 86 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

recognise the characteristic quality of the message, and were 
also sufficiently interested in spirit identity to get the hand- 
writings compared and the case recorded. 

The entries in the MS book will now be quoted. The 
communications began with some obscure drawings, appar- 
ently representing the flight of a bird; then in answer to a 
question as to the meaning it went on : — 

A. " It is a spirit who has but just quitted the body. Blanche Aber- 
cromby in the flesh. I have brought her. No more. M." 

Q. Do you mean ? 

No reply. [Sunday night about midnight. The information is 

unknown to me.] 
(On Monday morning the script continues) : — 

Q. I wish for information about last night. Is that true? Was it 
Mentor? 

A. " Yes, good friend, it was Mentor, who took pity on a spirit that 
was desirous to reverse former errors. She desires us to say 
so. She was ever an inquiring spirit, and was called suddenly 
from your earth. She will rest anon. One more proof has 
been now given of continuity of existence. Be thankful and 
meditate with prayer. Seek not more now, but cease. We do 
not wish you to ask any questions now. 

1 1: S:D. X Rector." 

A week later some matter of what must be called non- 
evidential quality appears; but in this instance I propose to 
quote it because this is an important case. 

Q. Can you write for me now? 

A. " Yes, the chief is here." 

Q. How was it that spirit [Blanche Abercromby's] came to me? 

A. " The mind was directed to the subject, and being active, it pro- 
jected itself to you. Moreover, we were glad to be able to 
afford you another proof of our desire to do what is in our 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 187 

power to bring home to you evidence of the truth of what we 
say." 

Q. Is it correct to say that the direction of thought causes the spirit 
to be present? 

A. " In some cases it is so. Great activity of spirit, coupled with 
anxiety to discover truth and to seek into the hidden causes 
of things, continue to make it possible for a spirit to manifest. 
Moreover, direction of thought gives what you would call 
direction or locality to the thought. By that we mean that 
the instinctive tendency of the desire or thought causes a pos- 
sibility of objective manifestation. Then by the help of those 
w T ho, like ourselves, are skilled in managing the elements, mani- 
festation becomes possible. This would not have been possi- 
ble in this case, only that we took advantage of what would 
have passed unnoticed in order to work out another proof of 
the reality of our mission. It is necessary that there should 
be a combination of circumstances before such a manifestation 
can be possible. And that combination is rare. Hence the 
infrequency of such events, and the difficulty we have in ar- 
ranging them : especially when anxiety enters into the matter, 
as in the case of a friend whose presence is earnestly desired. 
It might well be that so ready a proof as this might not 
occur again." 

Q, Then a combination of favourable circumstances aided you. Will 
the spirit rest, or does it not require it? 

A. " We do not know the destiny of that spirit. It will pass out 
of our control. Circumstances enabled us to use its presence: 
but that presence will not be maintained." 

Q. If direction of thought causes motion, I should have thought it 
would be so with our friends and that they would therefore 
be more likely to come. 

A, " It is not that alone. Nor is it so with all. All cannot come 
to earth. And not in all cases does volition or thought cause 
union of souls. Many other adjuncts are necessary before 
such can be. Material obstacles may prevent, and the guard- 
ians may oppose. We are not able to pursue the subject now, 



1 88 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

seeing that we write with difficulty. At another time we may 
resume. Cease for the present and do not seek further. 

f I : S : D. Rector." 

A few days later, Mr. Moses wrote: — 

Q. The spirit B. A. began by drawing. Was it herself? 

A, With assistance. She could not write. One day if she is able 

to return again, she will be more able to express her 

thoughts. . . . 

(A few days later.) 

A, A spirit who has before communicated will write for you herself, 
She will then leave you, having given the evidence that is 
required. 

" I should much like to speak more with you, but it is not 
permitted. You have sacred truth. I know but little yet. I 
have much, much to learn. — Blanche Abercromby. 

" It is like my writing as evidence to you." 

The statement that the writing of this particular message 
is like that of the lady's was long afterwards verified with 
some care and trouble by Mr. Myers, and is correct. The 
amende, and the sentence, " I have much, much to learn," 
are characteristic, 



Attempts have been made, and are still made from time 
to time, to explain all this sort of thing — some of it by the 
recrudescence of lapsed memory, some of it by telepathy, and 
some of it by clairvoyance. If such attempts are regarded 
as successful how can it be possible, by any means, to get 
over the difficulty and to establish the identity of any com- 
municator? I reply 

(a) by gradually accumulated internal evidence, based 
on pertinacious and careful record; 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 189 

(b) by cross correspondences, or the reception of un- 

intelligible parts of one consistent and coherent 
message, through different mediums; 

(c) by information or criteria specially characteristic 

of the supposed communicating intelligence; and, 
if possible, in some sense new to the world. 

Cross-correspondence — that is, the reception of part of 
a message through one medium and part through another 
— is good evidence of one intelligence dominating both 
automatists; especially if the parts separately are unintel- 
ligible, so that they cannot be rationally signalled either by 
normal or supernormal means. And if the message is char- 
acteristic of some one particular deceased person, and is re- 
ceived through people to whom he was not intimately known, 
then it is fair proof of the continued intellectual activity of 
that personality. If further we get from him a piece of 
literary criticism which is eminently in his vein and has not 
occurred to ordinary people — not to either of the mediums, 
and not even to the literary world, but which on considera- 
tion is appreciated as sound as well as characteristic criticism, 
showing a familiar and wide knowledge of the poetry of 
many ages, and unifying apparently disconnected passages 
in some definite way, — then I say the proof, already strik- 
ing, would tend to become crucial. 

These, then, are the kinds of proof at which the Society is 
aiming. These are the kinds of proof which are in process 
of being attained. 



CHAPTER XIII 

BEGINNING OF THE CASE OF MRS. PIPER 

THE most famous of recent thorough automatists, or 
trance speaking and trance writing mediums, is un- 
doubtedly Mrs. Piper of Boston, U. S. A. With 
her an enormous amount of work has been done; and the Pro- 
ceedings of the Society, both in the past and in future years, 
will bear witness to the richness and fertility of this case, as 
well as to the industry with which it has been pursued and its 
various stages studied. To give anything like a full ac- 
count of even my own work in this direction — the merest 
fraction of the whole — would need much more space than 
it would be wise to expend on it in this book, so I shall select 
only such small portions as will give some idea of what hap- 
pens, and refer students who wish to pursue the matter 
further to the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search. 

As a prelude to the Report on the 1890 English series of 
sittings, which were the first that the Society published, Mr. 
Myers at that time wrote an Introduction from which I will 
make a few extracts, because they illustrate the kind of view 
which that experienced investigator at that time took of 
these, in some respects, novel phenomena. 

Mr. F. W. H. Myers's Early Testimony 

On certain external or preliminary points, all who have 
had adequate opportunity of judgment, are decisively 

190 



MRS. PIPER 191 

agreed; but on the more delicate and interesting question 
as to the origin of the trance-utterances we cannot unite in 
any absolute view. We agree only in maintaining that the 
utterances show that knowledge has been acquired by some 
intelligence in some supernormal fashion ; — and in urging 
on experimental psychologists the duty of watching for 
similar cases, and of analysing the results in some such way 
as we have endeavoured to do. 

The study of trance-utterances, indeed, is at first sight 
distasteful; since real and pretended trance-utterances have 
notoriously been the vehicle of much conscious and uncon- 
scious fraud. But we urge that, just as the physical and 
psychical phenomena of hysteria — long neglected as a mere 
jungle of trickeries — are now analysed with adequate se- 
curity against deception, and with most fruitful results, so 
also these utterances are now capable of being rationally 
studied, — thanks to the advance in the comprehension of 
automatic phenomena which French and English effort dur- 
ing the last few years has achieved. 

These utterances, although they often occur in hysterical 
subjects, seem to have no necessary connection with hysteria. 
Nor again have we any real ground for calling them morbid 
per se, although their excessive repetition may lead to morbid 
states. All that we can safely say is that they are a form 
of automatism; that they constitute one of many classes of 
phenomena which occur in sane subjects without entering the 
normal waking consciousness or forming part of the habitual 
chain of memory. 

In previous discussions automatism has been divided into 
active and passive types; active automatism consisting of 
such phenomena as automatic writing and trance-utterance — 
passive, of hallucinations of sight, hearing, &c. " The 
automatism may be called active if it finds a motor channel, 
passive if it find a sensory channel, but the impulse whence 
it originates may be much the same in the one case as in the 
other." 

The unsubstantial character of trance-utterances in general 
is fully admitted. " Trance-addresses are eminently barren 
of fact; they generally show little more than a mere power 



192 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

of improvisation, which may either be fraudulently practised, 
or may be a characteristic faculty of the unconscious self." 

When, therefore, we were informed by trusted witnesses, 
— by Professor William James, who is a physician as well 
as a psychologist, and by Mr. Hodgson, whose acumen in 
the detection of imposture has been proved in more fields 
than one, — that the utterances of Mrs. Piper's trance did 
in their view unquestionably contain facts of which Mrs. 
Piper in her waking state was wholly ignorant, some inquiry 
into the character of this trance seemed to fall in the direct 
line of our work. 

However the specific trance-utterances may be interpreted, 
the case as a whole is a rare and remarkable one. It is an 
instance of automatism of that extreme kind where the up- 
heaval of sub-conscious strata is not merely local, but affects, 
so to say, the whole psychical area; — where a secondary 
consciousness not only crops up here and there through 
the primary, but for a time displaces it; — where, in short, 
the whole personality appears to suffer intermittent change. 

These trances cannot always be induced at pleasure. A 
state of quiet expectancy or " self-suggestion " will usually 
bring one on; but sometimes the attempt altogether fails. 
We never attempted to induce the trance of hypnotism. 
We understand, indeed, that Mrs. Piper has never been 
deeply hypnotised, although Professor Richet tried on her 
some experiments of suggestion in the waking state, and 
found her somewhat " suggestable." On the other hand, 
the trance has occasionally appeared when it was not desired. 
The first time that it occurred (as Mrs. Piper informs us) 
it came as an unwelcome surprise. An instance of this kind 
occurred at Cambridge. Before going to bed she had, at 
my request, says Mr. Myers, and for the first time in her 
life, been looking into a crystal, with the desire to see 
therein some hallucinatory figure which might throw light 
on the nature of the mysterious secondary personality. She 
saw nothing; but next morning she looked exhausted, and 
said that she thought that she had been entranced during 
the night. The next time that she went into a trance 
Phinuit [which is the name she used to be known by when 



MRS. PIPER 193 

in the trance] said he had come and called, and no one had 
answered him. It appeared as though the concentration of 
thought upon the crystal had acted as a kind of self-sug- 
gestion, and had induced the secondary state, when not de- 
sired. 

The trance when induced generally lasted about an hour. 
On one occasion in my house, and I believe once at least in 
America, it only lasted for about a minute. Phinuit only 
had time to say that he could not remain, and then the 
habitual moaning began, and Mrs. Piper came to herself. 

There was often a marked difference between the first 
few minutes of a trance and the remaining time. On such 
occasions almost all that was of value would be told in the 
first few minutes; and the remaining talk would consist of 
vague generalities or mere repetitions of what had already 
been given. Phinuit, as will be seen, always professed him- 
self to be a spirit communicating w T ith spirits; and he used 
to say that he remembered their messages for a few minutes 
after " entering into the medium," and then became con- 
fused. He was not, however, apparently able to depart 
when his budget of facts was empty. There seemed to be 
some irresponsible letting-off of energy which must continue 
until the original impulse was lost in incoherence. 

Mrs. Piper's case has been more or less continuously ob- 
served by Professor James and others almost from the date 
of the first sudden inception of the trance, some twenty-five 
years ago. Dr. Hodgson was in the habit of bringing ac- 
quaintances of his own to Mrs. Piper, v/ithout giving their 
names; and many of these have heard from the trance-ut- 
terance facts about their dead relations, &c, which they feel 
sure that Mrs. Piper could not have known. Dr. Hodgson 
also had Mr. and Mrs. Piper watched or " shadowed " by 
private detectives for some weeks, with the view of discover- 
ing whether Mr. Piper (at that time alive and employed in 
a large store in Boston, U. S. A.) went about inquiring into 
the affairs of possible " sitters," or whether Mrs. Piper re- 



i 9 4 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

ceived letters from friends or agents conveying information. 
This inquiry was pushed pretty closely, but absolutely noth- 
ing was discovered which could throw suspicion on Mrs. 
Piper, — who is now aware of the procedure, but has the 
good sense to recognise the legitimacy — I may say scientific 
necessity — of this kind of probation. 

It was thus shown that Mrs. Piper made no discoverable 
attempt to acquire knowledge even about persons whose com- 
ing she had reason to expect. Still less could she have been 
aware of the private concerns of persons brought anonym- 
ously to her house at Dr. Hodgson's choice. 

We took great pains, continues Mr. Myers, to avoid giv- 
ing information in talk; and a more complete security is to 
be found in the fact that we were ourselves ignorant of 
many of the facts given as to our friends' relations, &c. In 
the case of Mrs. Verrall, for instance, no one in Cambridge 
except Mrs. Verrall herself could have supplied the bulk of 
the information given; and some of the facts given Mrs. 
Verrall herself did not know. As regards my own affairs, 
says Mr. Myers, I have not thought it worth while to cite 
in extenso such statements as might possibly have been got 
up beforehand; since Mrs. Piper of course knew that I 
should be one of her sitters. Such facts as that I once had 
an aunt, " Cordelia Marshall, more commonly called Cor- 
rie," might have been learnt, — though I do not think that 
they were learnt, — from printed or other sources. But I 
do not think that any larger proportion of such accessible 
facts was given to me than to an average sitter, previously 
unknown ; nor were there any of those subtler points which 
could so easily have been made by dint of scrutiny of my 
books or papers. On the other hand, in my case, as in the 
case of several other sitters, there were messages purporting 
to come from a friend who has been dead many years, and 
mentioning circumstances which I believe that it would have 
been quite impossible for Mrs. Piper to have discovered. 

I am also acquainted with some of the facts given to 



MRS. PIPER 195 

other sitters, and suppressed as too intimate, or as involving 
secrets not the property of the sitter alone. I may say that 
so far as my own personal conviction goes, the utterance of 
one or two of these facts is even more conclusive of super- 
normal knowledge than the correct statement of dozens of 
names of relations, &c, which the sitter had no personal 
motive for concealing. 

On the whole, I believe that all observers, both in America 
and in England, who have seen enough of Mrs. Piper in 
both states to be able to form a judgment, will agree in 
affirming ( 1 ) that many of the facts given could not have 
been learnt even by a skilled detective; (2) that to learn 
others of them, although possible, would have needed an 
expenditure of money as well as of time which it seems 
impossible to suppose that Mrs. Piper could have met; and 
(3) that her conduct has never given any ground whatever 
for supposing her capable of fraud or trickery. Few per- 
sons have been so long and so carefully observed; and she 
has left on all observers the impression of thorough up- 
rightness, candour, and honesty. 

Mrs. Piper and the Press 

It may be within the knowledge of some readers that in 
the year 190 1 absurdly misleading articles appeared in the 
American Press, and were copied in some of the English 
papers, to the effect that Mrs. Piper had " confessed " and 
exploded her whole fabric. 

The articles belong to the discreditable side of transat- 
lantic newspaper enterprise, and it is discouragaing that they 
should not have been more readily assessed at their true 
worth. I find that the misconception thus started is occasion- 
ally still found surviving, so I quote the critical and judicial 
utterance of the Editor of the Journal of the Society for 
Psychical Research on the subject, which set the matter com- 
pletely at rest so far as all members of the Society were con- 
cerned. 



196 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

Since issuing the November Journal, a copy of the article 
on Mrs. Piper published in the New York Herald of 
October 20th [1901] has reached us. The first part of 
this is signed by Mrs. Piper herself, the second part con- 
sisting of comments and opinions on her case. The article 
begins by saying that Mrs. Piper intends to give up the 
work she has been doing for the S.P.R., in order to devote 
herself to other and more congenial pursuits; and it goes 
on to say that it was on account of her own desire to under- 
stand the phenomena that she first allowed her trances to 
be investigated and placed herself in the hands of scientific 
men with the understanding that she should submit to any 
tests they chose to apply; also that now, after fourteen years' 
work, the subject not being yet cleared up, she feels disin- 
clined for further investigation. As to her own view of 
the phenomena, she says: — " The theory of telepathy 
strongly appeals to me as the most plausible and genuinely 
scientific solution of the problem. ... I do not be- 
lieve that spirits of the dead have spoken through me when 
I have been in the trance state. ... It may be that 
they have, but I do not affirm it." 

The Editor of Light states in his issue of November 30th, 
1 90 1, that he has received a letter from Mrs. Piper in which 
she " explains that, having heard that the New York Herald 
people had, in a preliminary announcement, advertised her 
name with the word ' Confession ' above it, she at once for- 
bade the publication of the article altogether. The result 
was that she received a telegram from the Herald counselling 
her to ' sleep calm ! ' and assuring her that the word * Con- 
fession ' had only been used in the way of i advertising smart- 
ness ' and would not appear in the Herald article. This 
telegram Mrs. Piper has sent for our inspection and we have 
it still." 

Dr. Hodgson has sent us cuttings from two Boston papers 
bearing on this report. The Boston Advertiser of October 
25th, 1 90 1, says that Mrs. Piper dictated the following 
statement to a representative of theirs: — 

" I did not make any such statement as that published in 
the New York Herald to the effect that spirits of the de- 



MRS. PIPER 197 

parted do not control me. . . . My opinion is to-day 
as it was eighteen years ago. Spirits of the departed may 
have controlled me and they may not. I confess that I do 
not know. I have not changed. ... I make no 
change in my relations. " 

Now, comparing all these statements together, it will be 
seen that, neither in the original report in the Herald nor 
anywhere else has any revelation been made which could in 
any way affect the evidential value of Mrs. Piper's trance 
phenomena. Her honesty is not in question, and the Herald 
speaks of her throughout in highly laudatory terms. It 
represents her as holding a certain view of the phenomena 
— a view which is really incompatible with the supposition 
that they are fraudulent. Mrs. Piper's later utterances 
show that, although the Herald's report was garbled and 
postdated, she still expresses a preference for the telepathic 
over the spiritistic hypothesis. It is well known to all 
members of the S.P.R., and it is hardly necessary for us to 
repeat, that these two hypotheses have always been kept 
before the minds of those investigators who have sat with 
her; and since little value would be attached to her opinion 
in favour of the spiritistic hypothesis, it cannot fairly be 
urged that her opinion on the other side should weigh with 
us. Mrs. Piper, in fact, as we have already said, is not 
in a more favourable, but even in a less favourable, posi- 
tion for forming an opinion than those who sit with her, 
since she does not afterwards remember what passes while 
she is in a trance. 

On the other hand, the allegation of the Herald that Mrs. 
Piper had determined finally to discontinue her sittings is 
shown to be unfounded. The sittings had been suspended 
for some months owing to her health ; but one was held, as 
Dr. Hodgson informs us, on October 21st (the day after 
the article in the Herald appeared), and it was then ar- 
ranged to resume them after an interval of three months. 

To sum up, it is clear that Mrs. Piper has neither said 
nor done anything to diminish the value of evidence ob- 
tained through her, that the report in the New York Herald 
was misleading, and that her relations with the Society and 
Dr. Hodgson continued on the same footing as before. 



CHAPTER XIV 

PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES'S EARLY TESTI- 
MONY TO MRS. PIPER 

ALTHOUGH Mrs. Piper was brought by the Society 
to England in the autumn of 1889, she was of course 
known to members of the Society in America before 
then, and, so far as we were concerned, may be said to have 
been "discovered" by Professor William James in 1885. 
His early experience of her sittings, and his testimony as to 
the way in which his initial scepticism was broken down, are 
very interesting; and I shall here make a few quotations from 
a short paper of his which was included in the Proceedings 
of the Society along with my first Report of the Piper Case. 

Professor William James's Statement 

" I made Mrs. Piper's acquaintance in the autumn of 
1885. My wife's mother, Mrs. Gibbens, had been told of 
her by a friend, during the previous summer, and, never hav- 
ing seen a medium before, had paid her a visit out of curi- 
osity. She returned with the statement that Mrs. P. had 
given her a long string of names of members of the family, 
mostly Christian names, together with facts about the persons 
mentioned and their relations to each other, the knowledge 
of which on her part was incomprehensible without super- 
normal powers. My sister-in-law went the next day, with 
still better results, as she related them. Amongst other 
things, the medium had accurately described the circum- 

198 



TESTIMONY OF WM. JAMES 199 

stances of the writer of a letter which she held against her 
forehead, after Miss G. had given it to her. The letter 
was in Italian, and its writer was known to but two persons 
in this country. 

" I may add that on a later occasion my wife and I took 
another letter from this same person to Mrs. P. who went 
on to speak of him in a way which identified him unmistak- 
ably again. On a third occasion, two years later, my sister- 
in-law and I being again with Mrs. P., she reverted in her 
trance to these letters, and then gave us the writer's name, 
which she said she had not been able to get on the former 
occasion. 

" But to revert to the beginning. I remember playing 
the esprit fort on that occasion before my feminine relatives, 
and seeking to explain by simple considerations the marvel- 
lous character of the facts which they brought back. This 
did not, however, prevent me from going myself a few 
days later, in company with my wife, to get a direct personal 
impression. The names of none of us up to this meeting had 
been announced to Mrs. P.; and Mrs. J. and I were, of 
course, careful to make no reference to our relatives who had 
preceded. The medium, however, when entranced, repeated 
most of the names of ' spirits ' whom she had announced on 
the two former occasions, and added others. The names 
came with difficulty, and were only gradually made perfect. 
My wife's father's name of Gibbens was announced first as 
Niblin, then as Giblin. A child Herman (whom we had lost 
the previous year) had his name spelt out as Herrin. I 
think that in no case were both Christian and surnames given 
on this visit. But the facts predicated of the persons named 
made it in many instances impossible not to recognise the 
particular individuals who were talked about. We took par- 
ticular pains on this occasion to give the Phinuit control no 



200 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

help over his difficulties and to ask no leading questions. In 
the light of subsequent experience I believe this not to be the 
best policy. For it often happens, if you give this trance- 
personage a name or some small fact for the lack of which 
he is brought to a standstill, that he will then start off with 
a copious flow of additional talk, containing in itself an 
abundance of ' tests.' 

" My impression after this first visit was, that Mrs. P. was 
either possessed of supernormal powers, or knew the members 
of my wife's family by sight and had by some lucky coinci- 
dence become acquainted with such a multitude of their do- 
mestic circumstances as to produce the startling impression 
which she did. My later knowledge of her sittings and per- 
sonal acquaintance with her has led me absolutely to reject 
the latter explanation, and to believe that she has super- 
normal powers. 

" I also made during this winter an attempt to see 
whether Mrs. Piper's medium-trance had any community of 
nature with ordinary hypnotic trance. 

" My first two attempts to hypnotise her were unsuc- 
cessful. Between the second time and the third, I suggested 
to her ' control ' in the medium-trance that he should make 
her a mesmeric subject for me. He agreed. (A sugges- 
tion of this sort made by the operator in one hypnotic trance 
would probably have some effect on the next.) She became 
partially hypnotised on the third trial; but the effect was so 
slight that I ascribe it rather to the effect of repetition than 
to the suggestion made. By the fifth trial she had become 
a pretty good hypnotic subject, as far as muscular phenomena 
and automatic imitations of speech and gesture go; but I 
could not affect her consciousness, or otherwise get her be- 
yond this point. Her condition in this semi-hypnosis is very 
different from her medium-trance. The latter is character- 



TESTIMONY OF WM. JAMES 201 

ised by great muscular unrest, even her ears moving vigor- 
ously in a way impossible to her in her waking state. But in 
hypnosis her muscular relaxation and weakness are extreme. 
She often makes several efforts to speak ere her voice be- 
comes audible; and to get a strong contraction of the hand, 
for example, express manipulation and suggestion must be 
practised. The automatic imitations I spoke of are in the 
first instance very weak, and only become strong after repeti- 
tion. Her pupils contract in the medium-trance. Sugges- 
tions to the ' control ' that he should make her recollect after 
the medium-trance what she had been saying were accepted, 
but had no result. In the hypnotic-trance such a suggestion 
will often make the patient remember all that has happened. 

"No sign of thought-transference — as tested by card 
and diagram guessing — has been found in her, either in the 
hypnotic condition just described, or immediately after it; 
although her ' control ' in the medium-trance has said that 
he would bring them about. So far as tried (only twice), 
no right guessing of cards in the medium-trance. No clear 
signs of thought-transference, as tested by the naming of 
cards during the waking state. Trials of the ' willing game/ 
and attempts at automatic writing, gave similarly negative 
results. So far as the evidence goes, then, her medium- 
trance seems an isolated feature in her psychology. This 
would of itself be an important result if it could be estab- 
lished and generalised, but the record is obviously too im- 
perfect for confident conclusions to be drawn from it in any 
direction." 

" Here I dropped my inquiries into Mrs. Piper's medium- 
ship for a period of about two years, having satisfied myself 
that there was a genuine mystery there, but being over- 
freighted with time-consuming duties, and feeling that any 
adequate circumnavigation of the phenomena would be too 



202 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

protracted a task for me to aspire just then to undertake. 
I saw her once, half-accidentally, however, during that in- 
terval, and in the spring of 1889 saw ner f° ur times again. 
In the fall of 1889 she paid us a visit of a week at our country 
house in New Hampshire, and I then learned to know her 
personally better than ever before, and had confirmed in me 
the belief that she is an absolutely simple and genuine per- 
son. No one, when challenged, can give ' evidence ' to 
others for such beliefs as this. Yet we all live by them 
from day to day, and practically I should be willing now to 
stake as much money on Mrs. Piper's honesty as on that of 
anyone I know, and am quite satisfied to leave my reputation 
for wisdom or folly, so far as human nature is concerned, to 
stand or fall by this declaration. 

" And I repeat again what I said before, that, taking 
everything that I know of Mrs. P. into account, the result is 
to make me feel as absolutely certain as I am of any per- 
sonal fact in the world that she knows things in her trances 
which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, 
and that the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be 
found. The limitations of her trance-information, its dis- 
continuity and fitfulness, and its apparent inability to develop 
beyond a certain point, although they end by rousing one's 
moral and human impatience with the phenomenon, yet are, 
from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting 
peculiarities, since where there are limits there are condi- 
tions, and the discovery of these is always the beginning of 
explanation." 

The most recent utterance of Professor William James 
on the subject is published in the Proceedings of the S. P. R. 
for June, 1909 (Part lviii.), and it contains an account of 
conversations carried on through Mrs. Piper since Dr. 



TESTIMONY OF WM. JAMES 203 

Hodgson's death with what purported to be Dr. Hodgson's 
surviving personality — together with Professor James's 
critical comments thereupon. I do not quote, since the pub- 
lication can easily be obtained. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE AUTHOR'S FIRST REPORT ON MRS. PIPER 



M 



Y own first report on this case appeared in 1890, 
soon after the close of Mrs. Piper's first visit to 
England, and it ran as follows : — 



Account of Sittings with Mrs. Piper 
Formal Report 

At the request of Mr. Myers I undertook a share in 
the investigation of a case of apparent clairvoyance. 

It is the case of a lady who appears to go off into a 
trance when she pleases to will it under favourable surround- 
ings, and in that trance to talk volubly, with a manner and 
voice quite different from her ordinary manner and voice, 
on details concerning which she has had no information 
given her. 

In this abnormal state her speech has reference mainly to 
people's relatives and friends, living or deceased, about whom 
she is able to hold a conversation, and with whom she ap- 
pears more or less familiar. 

By introducing anonymous strangers, and by catechising 
her myself in various ways, I have satisfied myself that 
much of the information she possesses in the trance state is 
not acquired by ordinary commonplace methods, but that 
she has some unusual means of acquiring information. The 
facts on which she discourses are usually within the knowl- 
edge of some person present, though they are often entirely 
out of his conscious thought at the time. Occasionally facts 
have been narrated which have only been verified afterwards, 
and which are in good faith asserted never to have been 

204 



REPORT ON MRS. PIPER 205 

known; meaning thereby that they have left no trace on 
the conscious memory of any person present or in the neigh- 
bourhood, and that it is highly improbable that they were 
ever known to such persons. 

She is also in the trance state able to diagnose diseases, 
and to specify the owners or late owners of portable prop- 
erty, under circumstances which preclude the application of 
ordinary methods. 

In the midst of this lucidity a number of mistaken and 
confused statements are frequently made, having little or no 
apparent meaning or application. 

Concerning the particular means by which she acquires 
the different kinds of information, there is no sufficient evi- 
dence to make it safe to draw any conclusion. I can only 
say with certainty that it is by none of the ordinary methods 
known to Physical Science. 

Oliver J. Lodge 

May, 1890 

In order to gain experience, my wife had invited Mrs. 
Piper to our house in Liverpool between the dates Decem- 
ber 1 8th and December 27th, 1889; an d again between the 
dates January 30th and February 5th, 1890, when she sailed 
for New York. 

During these days we had twenty-two sittings, and I de- 
voted my whole time to the business, being desirous of mak- 
ing the investigation as complete and satisfactory as possible 
while the opportunity lasted. 

Mrs. Piper pretends to no knowledge as to her own pow- 
ers, and I believe her assertion that she is absolutely igno- 
rant of what she has said in the trance state. She appears to 
be anxious to get the phenomenon elucidated, and hopes by 
sitting to scientific investigators to have light thrown on her 
abnormal condition, about which she expresses herself as not 
quite comfortable. She perfectly appreciates the reason- 
ableness of withholding information; assents with a smile 



206 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

to a sudden stop in the middle of a sentence, and in general 
is quite uninquisitive. All this innocency may, of course, be 
taken as perfection of acting, but it deprives her of the great 
advantage (assuming fraudulent intention for the moment) 
of controlling the circumstances after the manner of a con- 
jurer; and prevents her from being the master of her own 
time and movements. The control of the experiments was 
thus entirely in my own hands, and this is an essential ingre- 
dient for satisfactory testimony. 

The initial question to be satisfactorily answered, before 
anything can be held worth either investigating or record- 
ing, concerns the honesty of Mrs. Piper herself. 

That there is more than can be explained by any amount 
of either conscious or unconscious fraud — that the phe- 
nomenon is a genuine one, however it is to be explained — I 
now regard as absolutely certain; and I make the following 
two statements with the utmost confidence : — 

(i.) Mrs. Piper's attitude is not one of deception. 

(ii.) No conceivable deception on the part of Mrs. Piper 
can explain the facts. 

[I went on to enumerate eight possibilities of imposture 
against which we were on our guard: but matters have ad- 
vanced far beyond that now, and it is useless to dwell upon 
this discarded part of the subject.] 

Cheating being eliminated, and something which may 
briefly be described as a duplex or trance personality being 
conceded, the next hypothesis is that her trance personality 
makes use of information acquired by her in her waking 
state, and retails what it finds in her sub-consciousness with- 
out any ordinary effort of memory. 

It is an interesting question whether any facts instilled 
into the waking Mrs. Piper can be recognised in the subse- 
quent trance speech. My impression at one time was that 



REPORT ON MRS. PIPER 207 

the trance information is practically independent of what spe- 
cific facts Mrs. Piper may happen to know. The evidence 
now seems to me about evenly balanced on either side. 
Whether the trance speech could give, say, scientific facts, 
or a foreign language, or anything in its nature entirely be- 
yond her ken, I am unable to say. [Further information on 
these points is now accessible, but not anything finally con- 
clusive. It appears that unknown details and incidents can 
certainly be obtained, but hardly information on some alien 
and recondite subject, — at least without great difficulty.] 
So far as my present experience has gone, I do not feel sure 
how far Mrs. Piper's knowledge or ignorance of specific 
facts has an appreciable influence on the communications of 
her trance personality. But certainly the great mass of facts 
retailed by this personality are wholly outside of Mrs. Piper's 
knowledge ; in detail, though not in kind. 

The personality active and speaking in the trance is ap- 
parently so distinct from the personality of Mrs. Piper that 
it is permissible and convenient to call it by another name. 
It does not differ from her as Hyde did from Jekyll, by be- 
ing a personification of the vicious portion of the same indi- 
vidual. There is no special contrast, any more than there 
is any special similarity. It strikes one as a different per- 
sonality altogether; and the name by which it introduces 
itself when asked, viz., " Dr. Phinuit," is as convenient as 
any other, and can be used wholly irrespective of hy- 
pothesis. 

I would not, in using this name, be understood as there- 
by committing myself to any hypothesis regarding the na- 
ture of this apparently distinct and individual mind. At 
the same time the name is useful as expressing compactly 
what is naturally prominent to the feeling of any sitter, that 
he is not talking to Mrs. Piper at all. The manner, mode 



208 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

of thought, tone, trains of idea, are all different. You are 
speaking no longer to a lady, but to a man, an old man, a 
medical man. All this cannot but be vividly felt even by one 
who considered the impersonation a consummate piece of act- 
ing. 

Whether such a man as Dr. Phinuit ever existed I do 
not know, nor from the evidential point of view do I greatly 
care. It will be interesting to have the fact ascertained if 
possible; but I cannot see that it will much affect the ques- 
tion of genuineness. For that he did not ever exist is a 
thing practically impossible to prove. While, if he did ex- 
ist, it can be easily supposed that Mrs. Piper took care 
enough that her impersonation should have so much rational 
basis. 

Proceeding now on the assumption that I may speak 
henceforth of Dr. Phinuit as of a genuine individual intelli- 
gence, whether it be a usually latent portion of Mrs. Piper's 
intelligence, or whether it be something distinct from her 
mind and the education to which it has been subjected, I 
go on to consider the hypotheses which still remain unex- 
amined. 

And first we have the hypothesis of fishery on the part 
of Dr. Phinuit, as distinguished from trickery on the part 
of Mrs. Piper. I mean a system of ingenious fishing: the 
utilisation of trivial indications, of every intimation — 
audible, tactile, muscular — and of little shades of manner 
too indefinable to name; all these, excited in the sitter by skil- 
ful guesses and well-directed shots, and their nutriment ex- 
tracted with superhuman cunning. 

Now this hypothesis is not one to be lightly regarded, or 
ever wholly set aside. I regard it as, to a certain extent, a 
vera causa. At times Dr. Phinuit does fish; occasionally he 



REPORT ON MRS. PIPER 209 

guesses; and sometimes he ekes out the scantiness of his in- 
formation from the resources of a lively imagination. 

Whenever his supply of information is abundant there is 
no sign of the fishing process. 

At other times it is as if he were in a difficult position, — 
only able to gain information from very indistinct or in- 
audible sources, and yet wishful to convey as much informa- 
tion as possible. The attitude is then as of one straining 
after every clue, and making use of the slightest indication, 
whether received in normal or abnormal ways : not indeed 
obviously distinguishing between information received from 
the sitter and information received from other sources. 

I am familiar with muscle-reading and other simulated 
" thought-transference " methods, and prefer to avoid con- 
tact whenever it is possible to get rid of it without too much 
fuss. Although Mrs. Piper always held somebody's hand 
while preparing to go into the trance, she did not always 
continue to hold it when speaking as Phinuit. She did 
usually hold the hand of the person she was speaking to, but 
was often satisfied for a time with some other person's, 
sometimes talking right across a room to and about a stran- 
ger, but preferring them to come near. On several occasions 
she let go of everybody, for half-hours together, especially 
when fluent and kept well supplied with " relics." 

I have now to assert with entire confidence that, pressing 
the ingenious-guessing and unconscious-indication hypothesis 
to its utmost limit, it can only be held to account for a very 
few of Dr. Phinuit's statements. 

It cannot in all cases be held to account for medical diag- 
nosis, afterwards confirmed by the regular practitioner. It 
cannot account for minute and full details of names, circum- 
stances, and events, given to a cautious and almost silent sit- 



210 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

ter, sometimes without contact. And, to take the strongest 
case at once, it cannot account for the narration of facts out- 
side the conscious knowledge of the sitter or of any person 
present. 

Rejecting the fishery hypothesis, then, as insufficient to 
account for many of the facts, we are driven to the only re- 
maining known cause in order to account for them: — viz., 
thought-transference, or the action of mind on mind inde- 
pendently of the ordinary channels of communication. 

I regard the fact of genuine " thought-transference " be- 
tween persons in immediate proximity (not necessarily in 
contact) as having been established by direct and simple ex- 
periment ; and, except by reason of paucity of instance, I con- 
sider it as firmly grounded as any of the less familiar facts 
of nature such as one deals with in a laboratory. I speak of 
it therefore as a known cause, i.e., one to which there need be 
no hesitation in appealing in order to explain facts which 
without it would be inexplicable. 

The Phinuit facts are most of them of this nature, and 
I do not hesitate to assert confidently that thought-transfer- 
ence is the most commonplace explanation to which it is pos~ 
sible to appeal. 

I regard it as having been rigourously proved before, and 
as therefore requiring no fresh bolstering up ; but to the many 
who have not made experiments on the subject, and are there- 
fore naturally sceptical concerning even thought-transference, 
the record of the Phinuit sittings will afford, I think, a secure 
basis for faith in this immaterial mode of communication, — 
this apparently direct action of mind on mind. 

But, whereas the kind of thought-transference which had 
been to my own knowledge experimentally proved was a 
hazy and difficult recognition by one person of objects kept as 
vividly as possible in the consciousness of another person, 



REPORT ON MRS. PIPER 211 

the kind of thought-transference necessary to explain these 
sittings is of an altogether freer and higher order, — a kind 
which has not yet been experimentally proved at all. Facts 
are related which are not in the least present to the conscious- 
ness of the sitter, and they are often detailed glibly and 
vividly without delay; in very different style from the tedious 
and hesitating dimness of the percipients in the old thought- 
transference experiments. 

But that is natural enough, when we consider that the 
percipient in those experiments had to preserve a mind as 
vacant as possible. For no process of inducing mental va- 
cancy can be so perfect as that of going into a trance, whether 
hypnotic or other. Moreover, although it was considered 
desirable to maintain the object contemplated in the con- 
sciousness of the agent, a shrewd suspicion was even then 
entertained that the subconscious part of the agent's mind 
might be perhaps equally effective. 

Hence one is at liberty to apply to these Phinuit records 
the hypothesis of thought-transference in its most developed 
state : vacuity on the part of the percipient, sub-conscious ac- 
tivity on the part of the sitter. 

In this form one feels that much can be explained. If 
Dr. Phinuit tells a stranger how many children, or brothers, 
or sisters he has, and their names; the names of father and 
mother and grandmother, of cousins and of aunts; if he 
brings appropriate and characteristic messages from well- 
known relatives deceased; all this is explicable on the 
hypothesis of free and easy thought-transference from the 
sub-consciousness of the sitter to the sensitive medium of the 
trance personality. 1 

1 For instance, in the course of my interviews, all my six brothers 
(adult and scattered) and one sister living were correctly named (two 
with some help), and the existence of the one deceased was mentioned. 
My father and his father were likewise named, with several uncles and 



212 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

So strongly was I impressed with this view that after some 
half-dozen sittings I ceased to feel much interest in being 
told things, however minute, obscure, and inaccessible they 
might be, so long as they were, or had been, within the 
knowledge either of myself or of the sitter for the time be- 
ing. 

At the same time it ought to be constantly borne in mind 
that this kind of thought-transference, without consciously 
active agency, has never been experimentally proved. Cer- 
tain facts not otherwise apparently explicable, such as those 
chronicled in Phantasms of the Living, have suggested it, but 
it is really only a possible hypothesis to which appeal has been 
made whenever any other explanation seems out of the ques- 
tion. But until it is actually established by experiment, in 
the same way that conscious mind action has been established, 
it cannot be regarded as either safe or satisfactory; and in 
pursuing it we may be turning our backs on some truer but 
as yet perhaps unsuggested clue. I feel as if this caution 
were necessary for myself as well as for other investigators. 

On reading the record it will be apparent that while 
" Phinuit " frequently speaks in his own person, relating 
things which he himself discovers by what I suppose we must 
call ostensible clairvoyance, sometimes he represents himself 
as in communication — not always quite easy and distinct 
communication, especially at first, but in communication — 
with one's relatives and friends who have departed this life. 

The messages and communications from these persons are 
usually given through Phinuit as a reporter. And he re- 
ports sometimes in the third person, sometimes in the first. 

aunts. My wife's father and stepfather, both deceased, were named 
in full, both Christian and surname, with full identifying detail. I only 
quote these as examples; it is quite unnecessary as well as unwise to 
attach any evidential weight to statements of this sort made during a 
sojourn in one's house. 



REPORT ON MRS. PIPER 213 

Occasionally, but very seldom, Phinuit seems to give up his 
place altogether to the other personality, friend or relative, 
who then communicates with something of his old manner 
and individuality; becoming often impressive and realistic. 

This last I say is rare, but with one or two personages it 
occurs, subject to reservations to be mentioned directly; and 
when it does, Phinuit does not appear to know what has been 
said. It is quite as if he in his turn evacuated the body, just 
as Mrs. Piper had done, while a third personality utilises 
it for a time. The voice and mode of address are once more 
changed, and more or less recall the voice and manner of the 
person represented as communicating. 

The communications thus obtained, though they show 
traces of the individuality of the person represented as speak- 
ing, are frequently vulgarised; and the speeches are more 
commonplace, and so to say " cheaper," than what one would 
suppose likely from the person himself. It can, of course, 
be suggested that the necessity of working through the brain 
of a person not exceptionally educated may easily be supposed 
capable of dulling the edge of refinement, and of rendering 
messages on abstruse subjects impossible. 



CHAPTER XVI 

EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 

AND now might follow a detailed report of the sit- 
tings which at that date (i 889-1 890) I held with 
Mrs. Piper in my house at Liverpool, all of which 
were taken down very fully; some of them verbatim by a 
stenographer introduced on those occasions. For in those 
days communication was conducted entirely by the voice; 
writing being quite exceptional and limited to a few words 
occasionally. Whereas in more recent years communication 
is for the most part conducted by writing only, and the need 
for stenography has practically ceased. 

My detailed report appears in the Proceedings of the So- 
ciety, vol. vi., but it occupies a great deal of space, and 
would be merely tiresome if reproduced in any quantity. 
Accordingly I propose to make only a few extracts, quoting 
those incidents which demonstrate one or other of the fol- 
lowing powers; or which illustrate by way of example the 
general character of the sittings at that time, — regarded 
rather from the dramatic than from the evidential point of 
view. 

The powers just referred to are the following: — 

( 1 ) The perception of trivial events simultaneously oc- 

curring at a distance. 

( 2 ) The reading of letters by other than normal means. 

(3) The recognition of objects and assignment of them 

to their respective owners. 
214 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 215 

(4) Perception of small and intimate family details in the 

case of complete strangers. 

(5) The statement of facts unknown at the time to any 

person present; 

(6) With perhaps a supplement illustrating apparent ig- 

norance of some facts within Mrs. Piper's normal 
knowledge, and likewise — what are frequent — 
instances of erroneous statement concerning facts 
which are well known to, and in the mind of, the 
sitter. 

Among sitters, I may mention Dr. Gerald Rendall, late 
of Trinity College, Cambridge, then Principal of University 
College, Liverpool. He was introduced as Mr. Roberts, 
and a sitting was immediately commenced. The names of 
his brothers were all given correctly at this or at the even- 
ing sitting of the same day, with many specific details which 
were correct. 

He brought with him a locket, and received communica- 
tions and reminiscences purporting to come from the deceased 
friend whom it commemorated, some of them at present in- 
completely verified by reason of absence of persons in 
America, some of them apparently incorrect, but those facts 
which he knew correctly stated in such a way as to satisfy 
him that chance guessing and all other commonplace sur- 
mises were absurdly out of the question. 

Another sitter was Prof. E. C. K. Gonner, then Lecturer 
on Economics at University College, Liverpool, introduced 
as Mr. McCunn, another colleague with whom therefore 
he might on a fraudulent hypothesis be confused. He 
brought a book belonging to his mother, still living in 
London, and had many correct details concerning her family 
and surroundings related to him. 



2i6 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

1 Many of his own family were also mentioned; but, 
whether because of the book or otherwise, his mother's in- 
fluence seemed more powerful than his own; and, several 
times, relatives, though otherwise spoken of correctly, were 
mentioned in terms of their relationship to the elder genera- 
tion. Phinuit, however, seemed conscious of these mistakes 
and several times corrected himself; as for instance: 
"Your brother William — no, I mean your uncle, her 
brother." 

' This Uncle William was a good instance. He had died 
before Prof. Gonner was born, but he had been his mother's 
eldest brother, and his sudden death had been a great shock 
to her — one in fact from which she was a long time recover- 
ing. Phinuit described him as having been killed with a 
hole in his head, like a shot hole, and yet not a shot, more like 
a blow : — the fact being that he met his death in a York- 
shire election riot, a stone striking him on the head. 

' Speaking of deaths, I may also mention the case of my 
wife's father, who died when she was a fortnight old in a 
dramatic and pathetic fashion. Phinuit described the cir- 
cumstances of his death rather vividly. The cause of death 
of her stepfather also, which was perfectly definite, was also 
precisely grasped. The fall of her own father down the 
hold of his ship and his consequent leg-pain were clearly 
stated. My wife was present on these occasions, and of 
course had been told of all these family incidents, and re- 
membered them.' 

As an illustration of the facility with which in those days 
Dr. Phinuit arrived at the relatives and their peculiarities of 
a complete stranger, I take the case of two sittings on the 
same day at which a medical man practising in Liverpool was 
introduced without notice by the false name of Dr. Jones. 
During the sitting the name, tastes, and defect of one little 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 217 

deaf and dumb daughter, ' Daisy/ of whom he was very 
fond, were vividly stated. My children are not acquainted 
with his. 

I may say that Dr. C. was almost entirely silent. Occa- 
sionally he assented with a grunt, but I found afterwards 
that he was assenting to wrong quite as much as to right 
statements. I hardly ever knew what was right and what 
wrong as I took the notes. He was thus an excellent though 
trying sitter. Phinuit was in one of his most loquacious 
moods, or he would not have progressed so well. Towards 
the end one could see he began to get tired of his own mon- 
olougue. The following is a very abbreviated record: — 

Sitting No. 42. Monday morning, December 23rd 

Present: Dr. C. (introduced as Dr. Jones) and O. J. L. 

[The following is an abstract of the correct, or subsequently 
corrected or otherwise noteworthy, statements. The false ones are 
similarly collected and appear later.] 

"You have a little lame girl, lame in the thigh, aged 13; either 
second or third. She's a little daisy. I do like her. Dark eyes, 
the gentlest of the lot ; good deal of talent for music. She will be a 
brilliant woman; don't forget it. She has more sympathy, more 
mind, more — quite a little daisy. She's got a mark, a curious little 
mark, when you look closely, over eye, a scar through forehead over 
left eye. The boy's erratic; a little thing, but a little devil. Pretty 
good when you know him. He'll make an architect likely. Let 
him go to school. His mother's too nervous. It will do him good. 
[This was a subject in dispute.] You have a boy and two girls 
and a baby; four in the body. It's the little lame one I care for. 
There are two mothers connected with you, one named Mary. Your 
aunt passed out with cancer. You have indigestion, and take hot 
water for it. You have had a bad experience. You nearly slipped 
out once on the water. [Dangerous yacht accident last summer. 
Above statements are correct except the lameness. See next sitting.] 



218 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

He came again the same evening and brought his wife. 
This time, unfortunately, they were admitted by a servant, 
who announced their names. Phinuit did not mention it, 
however. The full account of these sittings is long, and 
would require a great deal of annotation to make the details 
clear. For the sake of brevity, I purpose merely to abstract 
them. There are a number of erroneous statements, some 
of them to be partially accounted for by the fact that Dr. and 
Mrs. C. are cousins (a fact which I did not know, and which 
Phinuit did not ascertain) ; so he mixed their relatives at 
the second sitting. The family seems to be a very large one. 
I quote later the misstatements, but first I pick out the correct 
ones or those which require comment. 

Sitting No: 43. Monday evening, December 23rd 

Present: Dr. and Mrs. C. and O. J. L. [Statement correct 
when not otherwise noted.] 

" How's little Daisy? She will get over her cold. But there's 
something the matter with her head. There's somebody round you 
lame and somebody hard of hearing. That little girl has got music 
in her. This lady is fidgety. There are four of you, four going to 
stop with you, one gone out of the body. One got irons on his foot. 
Mrs. Allen, in her surroundings is the one with iron on leg. [Allen 
was maiden name of mother of lame one.] There's about 400 of 
your family. There's Kate; you call her Kitty. She's the one 
that's kind of a crank. Trustworthy, but cranky. She will fly off 
and get married, she will. Thinks she knows everything, she does. 
[This is the nurse-girl, Kitty, about whom they seem to have a joke 
that she is a walking compendium of information.] (An envelope 
with letters written inside, N — H — P — O — Q, was here handed in, 
and Phinuit wrote down B — J — R — O— I — S, not in the best of 
tempers.) A second cousin of your mother's drinks. The little 
dark-eyed one is Daisy. I like her. She can't hear very well. The 
lame one is a sister's child. [A cousin's child, the one nee Allen, 
really.] The one that's deaf in her head is the one that's got the 
music in her. That's Daisy, and she's going to have the paints I 
told you of. [Fond of painting.] She's growing up to be a beau- 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 219 

tiful woman. She ought to have a paper ear. [An artificial drum 
had been contemplated.] You have an Aunt Eliza. There are 
three Maries, Mary the mother, Mary the mother, Mary the mother. 
[Grandmother, aunt, and granddaughter.] Three brothers and two 
sisters your lady has. Three in the body. There were eleven in 
your family, two passed out small. [Only know of nine.] Fred 
is going to pass out suddenly. He married a cousin. He writes. 
He has shining things. Lorgnettes. He is away. He's got a catchy 
trouble with heart and kidneys, and will pass out suddenly. [Not 
the least likely. I have inquired and find that the " Fred " supposed 
to be intended is still alive in 1909. O. J. L.] 

Note. — The most striking part of this sitting is the 
prominence given to Dr. C.'s favourite little daughter, 
Daisy, a child very intelligent and of a very sweet disposi- 
tion, but quite deaf; although her training enables her to 
go to school and receive ordinary lessons with other children. 
At the first sitting she is supposed erroneously to be lame, 
but at the second sitting this is corrected and explained, and 
all said about her is practically correct, including the cold 
she then had. Mrs. Piper had had no opportunity what- 
ever of knowing or hearing of the C. children by ordinary 
social means. We barely know them ourselves. Phinuit 
grasped the child's name gradually, using it at first as a 
mere description. I did not know it myself. Dr. Phinuit 
is lavish with predictions, such as the one at the end, which 
frequently, I think usually, fail. I deeply regret to say 
that his predictions regarding Daisy are likewise false, for 
she caught the influenza, and the announcement of her death 
is in to-day's paper. — June, 1890. 

A list of particulars like this makes very dull reading, but 
evidentially it is as good as can be. No possible normal 
means can be suggested by which these things were obtained, 
nor was there any fishing or guidance by the sitter. 

The only normal explanation is that they were hit upon 
by chance, but that is perfectly absurd, as any one will realise 
who will go through these incidents and try to apply them to 



220 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

himself or to any friend known to him. As a matter of fact 
they do not apply, and cannot apply in their entirety, to any- 
body but the person for whom they were intended. 

Of course this is by no means a solitary instance of the 
detection of appropriate family details, and perhaps it. is not 
so striking as some others, but it is a sound instance that came 
directly within my own observation. 

The doctor himself was characteristically sceptical about 
the whole thing, but permits me to append the following note 
of his on the case, written some time later: — 

" The trance state seemed natural; but had more volun- 
tary movement than I had ever seen in an epileptic attack. 
The entire change in Mrs. Piper's manner and behaviour is 
unlike an intentional effort, and it is possible she herself be- 
lieves that the conditions mean something outside of her- 
self. With regard to the result, the misses seem to balance 
the hits, and the ' reading ' is not so impressive as the 
' sitting.' After reading over your notes I think they con- 
sist of a certain amount of thought-reading and a large 
amount of skilful guessing. 

I find myself unable to agree with the hasty statement that 
" the misses balance the hits," since even numerically they 
are distinctly fewer; and if the result were due to chance they 
ought to be out of all comparison fewer. 

The following is a summary of the false assertions made 
during the two sittings : — 

At -first sitting: — 

"Your lady's Fanny; well, there is a Fanny. [No.] Fred has 
light hair, brownish moustache, prominent nose. [No.] Your thesis 
was some special thing. I should say about lungs." [No.] 

At second sitting: — 

" Your mother's name was Elizabeth. [No.] Her father's lame. 
[No.] Of your children there's Eddie and Willie and Fannie or 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 221 

Annie and a sister that faints, and Willie and Katie (no, Katie don't 
count) [being the nurse], and Harry and the little dark-eyed one, 
Daisy. [All wrong except Daisy.] One passed out with sore 
throat. [No.] The boy looks about eight. [No, four.] Your 
wife's father had something wrong with leg; one named William. 
[No.] Your grandmother had a sister who married a Howe — 
Henry Howe. [Unknown.] There's a Thomson connected with 
you [no], and if you look you will find a Howe too. Your brother 
the captain [correct], with a lovely wife, who has brown hair [cor- 
rect], has had trouble in head [no], and has two girls and a boy." 
[No, three girls.] 



As another instance of the disentangling of the relatives 
of a stranger, I take the case of a shorthand clerk whom I 
had borrowed once or twice from the College Registrar to 
take down what was said verbatim. He sat at a distance 
taking notes, but Phinuit presently began to refer to him, 
told him that his brother had had a tooth out (which was 
true) and told him to inquire about a George Edward H. 
who had hurt his hand at a party, but who has not been rec- 
ognised. Then he said — 

" There seems to be some of that fellow's friends about here whom 
I can't avoid. There's a lot, and I can't get things straight. You 
will have to let me talk to him and get all his influence, and then I 
will talk to the rest of you. I can't help it. Get out. You don't 
mind me, do you? " 

[Exeunt O. J. L., A. L., and M. L.] 

(Clerk now came and took one hand, taking brief notes with the 
other.) 

" Your relations make me get mixed ; they refuse me when I'm 
talking to the Captain, so if I mention anyone belonging to 3011 you 
must tell me, that we may keep things straight. There's an old lady 
in the spirit talking to me, and her influence disturbs me. [Grand- 



222 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

mother died a few years ago.] Ask your brother if he don't know 
those people at party, and that fellow who hurt his hand, George 
Edward H., and he's got a brother Fred. You have a cousin Char- 
ley [true] that stops in your home [no, his brother used to], and a 
cousin named Harry. [True.] There are six in your family, four 
boys and* two girls. [Correct.] The sister is Minnie. [Correct.] 
She is cranky, stupid sometimes [true], but she will grow out of 
that. Your mother has a pain in her head sometimes. [No.] Min- 
nie is musical. [Not particularly.] One brother writes a great 
deal. [I do myself.] Your name is Ed. [Correct.] Your grand- 
mother keeps calling Ed. You ask about those people I told you of, 
and you will find it's true. [Have made diligent inquiries ineffectu- 
ally.] I want the Captain. See you, Captain, that fellow's straight. 
Now, then, Alfred and Marie. Got straightened out a little bit? 
That's all right. Here, Alfred, I've got to talk to you. All the 
rest skip." [" Captain " was the nickname by which Phinuit usually 
addressed O. J. L.] 



As an instance of reading a letter, which had indeed passed 
through my mind in the way recorded, but which was not 
read in any normal manner by the medium, I take the follow- 
ing case : — 

(A chain was handed to Phinuit by O. J. L., the package having 
been delivered by hand to O. J. L. late the previous evening. He 
had just opened the package, glanced at the contents, and hastily read 
a letter inside, then wrapped all up again and stored them. The 
chain had been sent by Mrs. John Watson from Sefton Drive; it had 
belonged to Dr. Watson's father.) 

" This belongs to an old gentleman that passed out of the body — 
a nice old man. I see something funny here, something the matter 
with heart, paralytic something. Give me the wrappers, all of them." 
[i. e., The paper it came in ; a letter among them. Medium held 
them to top of her head, gradually flicking away the blank ones. She 
did not inspect them. She was all the while holding with her other 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 223 

hand another stranger, a Mr. Lund, who knew nothing whatever 
about the letter or the chain.] 

" Who's dear Lodge? Who's Poole, Toodle, Poodle? Whatever 
does that mean ? " 

O. J. L. : " I haven't the least idea." 

"Is there J. N.W. here? Poole. Then there's Sefton. S-e-f- 
t-o-n. Pool, hair. Yours truly, J. N. W. That's it ; I send hair. 
Poole. J. N. W. Do you understand that? " 
O.J.L.: "No, only partially." 

"Who's Mildred, Milly? something connected with it, and Alice; 
and with him, too, I get Fanny. There's his son's influence on it." 
[Note by O. J. L. — I found afterwards that the letter began 
" Dear Dr. Lodge," contained the words " Sefton Drive," and 
" Cook " so written as to look like Poole. It also said : " I 
send you some hair," and finished " yours sincerely, J. B. W." ; 
the " B " being not unlike an " N." The name of the sender 
was not mentioned in the letter, but at a subsequent sitting 
it was correctly stated by Phinuit in connection with the 
chain.] 

This reading of letters in an abnormal way is very curious, 
and is a very old type of phenomenon. Kant and Hegel 
were both familiar with it: only it was then called " reading 
with the pit of the stomach." Now it seems usually done 
with the top of the head. 

I had a few other cases — less distinct than the above — 
and I again refer here to the little experiment made by Mrs. 
Verrall as reported on page 128. 

One of the best sitters was a friend who for several years 
was my next-door neighbour at Liverpool, Isaac C. Thomp- 
son, F.L.S., to whose name indeed, before he had been in 
any way introduced, Phinuit sent a message purporting to 
come from his father. Three generations of his and of his 



224 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

wife's family, living and dead (small and compact Quaker 
families), were, in the course of two or three sittings, con- 
spicuously mentioned, with identifying detail; the main infor- 
mant representing himself as his deceased brother, a young 
Edinburgh doctor, whose loss had been mourned some 
twenty years ago. The familiarity and touchingness of the 
messages communicated in this particular instance were very 
remarkable, and can by no means be reproduced in any 
printed report of the sitting. Their case is one in which 
very few mistakes were made, the details standing out vividly 
correct, so that in fact they found it impossible not to be- 
lieve that their relatives were actually speaking to them. 
This may sound absurd, but it correctly represents the im- 
pression produced by a favourable series of sittings, and it 
is for that reason I mention it now. Simple events occurring 
elsewhere during the sitting were also detected by Dr. 
Phinuit in their case, better than in any other I know of. 
A full report of this rather excellent case has had to be 
omitted for lack of space. 

There was a remarkable little incident towards the end 
of my series of sittings, when this friend of mine was pres- 
ent. A message interpolated itself to a gentleman living in 
Liverpool, known, but not at all intimately known, to both 
of us, and certainly outside of our thoughts — the head of 
the Liverpool Post-office, Mr. Rich. The message pur- 
ported to be from a son of his who had died suddenly a few 
months ago, and whom I had never seen; though Isaac 
Thompson had, it seems, once or twice spoken to him. 

This son addressed I. G. T. by name and besought him to 
convey a message to his father, who, he said, was much 
stricken by the blow, and who was suffering from a recent 
occasional dizziness in his head, so that he felt afraid he 
should have to retire from business. Other little things were 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 225 

mentioned of an identifying character; and the message was, 
a few days later duly conveyed. The facts stated were ad- 
mitted to be accurate; and the father, though naturally in- 
clined to be sceptical, confessed that he had indeed been more 
than ordinarily troubled at the sudden death of his eldest 
son, because of a recent unfortunate estrangement between 
them which would otherwise have been only temporary. 

The only thought-transference explanation I can reason- 
ably offer him is that it was the distant activity of his own 
mind, operating on the sensitive brain of the medium, of 
whose existence he knew absolutely nothing, and contriving 
to send a delusive message to itself ! 

One thing about which the son seemed anxious was a 
certain black case which he asked us to speak to his father 
about, and to say he did not want lost. The father did not 
know what case was meant: but I have heard since, indi- 
rectly, that on his death-bed the son was calling out about 
a black case, though I cannot learn that the particular case 
has been securely identified. 

Contemplating these and such-like communications, I could 
not help feeling that if it be really a case of thought-trans- 
ference at all, it is thought-transference of a surprisingly 
vivid kind, the proof of which would be very valuable, sup- 
posing it were the correct explanation of the phenomenon. 

But I felt doubtful if it were the correct explanation. 
One must not shut one's eyes to the possibility that in pursu- 
ing a favourite hypothesis one may after all be on the wrong 
tack altogether. 

Every known agency must be worked to the utmost before 
one is willing to admit an unknown one : and indeed to aban- 
don this last known link of causation as inadequate to sustain 
the growing weight of facts was an operation not to be lightly 
undertaken. And yet I felt grave doubts whether it would 
really suffice to explain the facts ; whether indeed it went any 
distance toward their explanation. 



226 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

Things were sometimes told to me and to others so en- 
tirely foreign to our conscious thought that at first they were 
not recognised as true or intelligible, and only gradually or 
by subseqeunt explanation was the meaning clearly perceived. 
But something of the same experience is gone through in 
dreams; one sometimes feels surprised at the turn a dream 
conversation is taking, and has the feeling also occasionally 
of learning something new. Hence this argument is not of 
much strength taken alone. 

Another argument bases itself on the mistakes which Dr. 
Phinuit sometimes unaccountably made. One noteworthy 
instance is called attention to by one of my sitters, whose 
father, in the midst of much that was correct and striking, 
was reported as saying that his name was John. Now his 
son, the sitter, was vividly conscious that his deceased fa- 
ther's name was not John, but was Peter. No knowledge of 
this, however, was shown by Phinuit; though, by subse- 
quently several times quoting the name as Thomas, he seemed 
to show consciousness that there had been an error some- 
where. 

The only explanation of this that I can suggest, beyond 
mere bungle and error, is that / was in the room also taking 
notes, and though I of course knew the surname, I was quite 
ignorant of the Christian name. 

Undoubtedly therefore the hypothesis of thought-trans- 
ference has to be wriggled and stretched a little ; though we 
may be willing to stretch it to any required length, so long 
as it does not actually snap. But feeling that it did not 
really commend itself, I endeavoured to apply some crucial 

And the first was a few children's alphabet letters, pinched 
up at random, put in a pill box without looking, and sealed 
by me in the presence of Prof. Carey Foster a month or so 
previously. This box I now handed to " Phinuit " and 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 227 

asked him what was inside it, telling him at the same time 
that no one knew, and requesting him to do his best. 

He immediately asked for a pencil, and holding the box 
to Mrs. Piper's forehead, shaking it a little at intervals, as 
if to disentangle the contents and bring them more clearly 
before him, he wrote down some letters on a bit of cardboard 
held for him. 

I thanked him, and next morning for better security, 
asked him to try again. He did, and wrote down just the 
same letters, even to the extent of saying which way they 
happened to face in the box. 

I wrote two accounts of the contents of the box, one to 
Mr. Myers and one to Prof. Carey Foster, under seal, tele- 
graphing to him to know if he were at home and ready to 
receive the box, assure himself that it had not beeen tampered 
with (though indeed it had not been out of my possession 
all the time), and then to open it and write out the letters 
and their aspects, in full detail, before opening my sealed 
account. He replied, " Yes," and I sent him the box regis- 
tered and insured. 

All the letters were wrong but two : though as it happens 
the number of letters were nearly correct. 

According to chance, if they had been pinched from a 
single alphabet, two should have been guessed right. The 
box from which they had been pinched contained many 
alphabets, but practically the conclusion of the experiment 
was utterly negative. The letters had not been read. 
(Proc. S. P. R., vi., 494.) 

This experiment inclined me strongly to some thought- 
transference explanation, as distinct from what seemed to me 
the more unknown and vague region of clairvoyance. 

If the letters themselves could be really directly perceived, 
the fact that they existed in nobody's mind could not mat- 
ter. But if minds only could be read, then it was essential 
that someone somewhere should be cognisant of the letters. 
I do not mean that it would do to base so clear a conclusion 
on the result of one negative experiment. It is an experi- 



228 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

ment which I want to repeat, — though Phinuit doesn't much 
care for this kind of thing and says it strains him, — but it 
seemed to me to strengthen the hypothesis of thought-trans- 
ference from some mind or other. So I set to work to try 
and obtain, by the regular process of communication which 
suits this particular medium, facts which were not only out of 
my knowledge but which never could have been in it. 

In giving an account of these experiments, fully reported 
at the time, though now some 20 years old, I must enter on 
a few trivial details concerning my own relations. The oc- 
casion is the excuse. 

It happened that an uncle of mine in London, then quite 
an old man, the eldest of a surviving three out of a very 
large family, of which my own father was one of the 
youngest, had had a twin brother who died some twenty or 
more years ago. I interested him generally in the subject, 
and wrote to ask if he would lend me some relic of this 
brother. By morning post on a certain day I received a 
curious old gold watch, which the deceased brother had worn 
and been fond of; and that same morning, — no one in the 
house having seen it or knowing anything about it, — I 
handed it to Mrs. Piper when in a state of trance. 

I was told almost immediately that it had belonged to 
one of my uncles — one that had been mentioned before as 
having died from the effects of a fall — one that had been 
very fond of Uncle Robert, the name of the survivor — that 
the watch was now in the possession of this same Uncle 
Robert, with whom its late owner was anxious to communi- 
cate. After some difficulty and many wrong attempts Dr. 
Phinuit caught the name, Jerry, short for Jeremiah, and 
said emphatically, as if impersonating him, " This is my 
watch, and Robert is my brother, and I am here. Uncle 
Jerry, my watch." All this at the first sitting on the very 
morning the watch had arrived by post, no one but 
myself and a shorthand clerk who happened to have been 
introduced for the first time at this sitting by me, and 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 229 

whose antecedents are well known to me, being present. 

Having thus ostensibly got into communication through 
some means or other with what purported to be Uncle Jerry, 
whom I had indeed known slightly in his later years of 
blindness, but of whose early life I knew nothing, I pointed 
out to him that to make Uncle Robert aware of his presence 
it would be well to recall trivial details of their boyhood, all 
of which I would faithfully report. 

He quite caught the idea, and proceeded during several 
successive sittings ostensibly to instruct Dr. Phinuit to men- 
tion a number of little things such as would enable his 
brother to recognise him. 

References to his blindness, illness, and main facts of his 
life were comparatively useless from my point of view; but 
these details of boyhood, two-thirds of a century ago, were 
utterly and entirely out of my ken. My father himself had 
only know these brothers as men. 

" Uncle Jerry " recalled episodes such as swimming the 
creek when they were boys together, and running some risk 
of getting drowned; killing a cat in Smith's field; the posses- 
sion of a small rifle, and of a long peculiar skin, like a 
snake-skin, which he thought w T as now in the possession of 
Uncle Robert. 

All these facts have been more or less completely verified. 
But the interesting thing is that his twin brother, from whom 
I got the watch and with whom I was thus in correspond- 
ence, could not remember them all. He recollected some- 
thing about swimming the creek, though he himself had 
merely looked on. He had a distinct recollection of hav- 
ing had the snake-skin, and of the box in which it was kept, 
though he did not know where it was then. But he alto- 
gether denied killing the cat, and could not recall Smith's 
field. 

His memory, however, was decidedly failing him, and he 
was good enough to write to another brother, Frank, living 
in Cornwall, an old sea captain, and ask if he had any better 
remembrance of certain facts — of course not giving any 
inexplicable reasons for asking. The result of this inquiry 
was triumphantly to vindicate the existence of Smith's field 



2 3 o AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

as a place near their home, where they used to play, in 
Barking, Essex; and the killing of a cat by another brother 
was also recollected; while of the swimming of the creek, 
near a mill-race, full details were given, Frank and Jerry 
being the heroes of that foolhardy episode. 

I may say here that Dr. Phinuit has a keen " scent " — 
shall I call it? — for trinkets or personal valuables of all 
kinds. He recognised a ring which my wife wears as hav- 
ing been given " to me for her " by a specified aunt just be- 
fore her death; of which he at another time indicated the 
cause fairly well. He called for a locket which my wife 
sometimes wears, but had not then on, which had belonged 
to her father 40 years ago. He recognised my father's 
watch, asked for the chain belonging to it, and was still un- 
satisfied for want of some appendage which I could not think 
of at the time, but which my wife later on reminded me of, 
and Phinuit at another sitting seized, — a seal which had been 
usually worn with it, and which had belonged to my grand- 
father. 

He pulled my sister's watch out of her pocket and said 
it had been her mother's, but disconnected the chain and 
said that didn't belong, which was quite right. Even little 
pocket things, such as fruit-knives and corkscrews, he also 
assigned to their late owners ; and once he quite unexpectedly 
gripped the arm of the chair Mrs. Piper was sitting in, which 
had never been mentioned to him in any way, and said 
that it had belonged to my Aunt Anne. It was quite true : 
it was an old-fashioned ordinary type of armchair which 
she valued and had had re-upholstered for us as a wedding 
present 12 years ago. Phinuit, by the way, did not seem to 
realise that it was a chair: he asked what it was and said he 
took it for part of an organ. 

But perhaps the best instance of a recognised object was 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 231 

one entrusted to me by the Rev. John Watson, at that time 
quite a recent friend of mine, with whom I had been stay- 
ing recently in Italy, — - a chain which had belonged to his fa- 
ther. It is the chain referred to in connexion with the episode 
of reading a letter related on page 222 above. 

The package was delivered by hand one evening at my 
house, and, by good luck, I happened to meet the messenger 
and receive it direct. Next morning I handed it to Dr. 
Phinuit, saying only, in response to his feeling some diffi- 
culty about it, that it did not belong to a relative. He said 
it belonged to an old man and had his son's influence on it. 
He also partially read a letter accompanying it — as de- 
scribed on page 222. Next sitting I tried the chain again, 
and he very soon reported the late owner as present, and rec- 
ognising the chain, but not recognising me. I explained that 
his son had entrusted me with it; on which Phinuit said the 
chain belonged now to John Watson, away for health, a 
preacher, and a lot of other details all known to me, and all 
correct. The old gentleman was then represented as willing 
to write his name. A name was written in the backward 
manner Phinuit sometimes affects. It was legible afterwards 
in a mirror as James Watson. Now, the name of his father 
I was completely ignorant of. 

I explained to the communicator that his son desired to 
hear from him, and asked him to be good enough to prove 
his identity. 

Whereupon, at intervals, a number of specific though 
trivial facts were mentioned. They were frequently ad- 
mitted to be trivial in an apologetic way, but nevertheless 
would serve as good evidence ; better than more conspicuous 
ones indeed. I took them down as well as I could, know- 
ing absolutely nothing of the correctness or incorrectness of 
most of them. Such facts as I did know were nearly all 



232 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

correct. Hence I had good hopes of another crucial test 
here. 

If what I knew was stated correctly, while all those things 
which I did not know should turn out inaccurate or false, I 
should be forcibly impelled towards a direct thought-trans- 
ference explanation for this entire set. But, on the other 
hand, if these things of which I had absolutely never heard 
or dreamt should turn out true, then some further step 
must be taken. 

Unfortunately the result is not so simple and crucial as 
I had expected it to be. A stranger always encounters some 
difficulty in getting at facts. The father's name turned out 
to be not James but John — the same as that of the son : and 
although the facts stated concerning the son, my friend, were 
practically all correct, I learned three weeks later, when I 
got a reply from Egypt where he was travelling, that the 
statements about the father were all wrong. Thus then 
they become valueless, except as strengthening the evidence 
for thought-transference from myself; for it was the facts of 
which I was ignorant that were wrong. But Dr. Watson 
told me later that James was the name of his grandfather, 
and that the statements would have a truer ring if they had 
purported to come from the grandfather instead of from 
the father. And I understood that the chain — which was 
the ostensible link of connexion — had belonged to both. 

Perception of Events at a Distance 

As an instance of the perception of things happening at a 
distance, I take the case of what may be called " Charley and 
the bird." This insignificant episode was in nobody's mind 
or knowledge in this country. It had happened in Canada 
during the time that Mrs. Piper was in England, and its oc- 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 233 

currence was only ascertained by subsequent special inquiry. 
The message purported to come from my deceased Aunt 
Anne, of whom this " Charley," living in Canada, was the 
adopted son. 

She said that she was very sorry that Charley ate the bird — the 
chicken — and made himself sick. He has had a trouble with his 
stomach. Her Charley. And he has been troubled for some little 
time. The bird made him sick. Some kind of bird. Quite sick. 
It troubled him a good deal. You write and ask him. But it is so. 
You will find it was. He will tell you. [This message was re- 
ceived on 26 Dec, 1889.] 

Sequel added September, 1890. — Concerning the episode recorded 
above: I wrote to a cousin who had emigrated last October to join 
her brother (the " Charley " referred to) in Manitoba, asking her if 
he had eaten any particular bird about Christmas time which had 
disagreed with him. Only recently have I got full information on 
the subject, the unsportsmanlike character of the act possibly, but 
more likely the difficulty of realising any sense in the inquiry, being 
responsible for some of the delay. The evidence now obtained is as 
follows : — 

" The boys shot a prairie hen as they were coming home one 
night, near the beginning of December, out of season, when there 
was a fine for killing these birds. So we had to hide it. It was 
hung for about a fortnight, and a few days before Christmas we ate 
it, Charley eating most. The bird didn't make him ill, but he was 
ill at the time, having the grippe. He went to town either that 
night or next day, and was certainly worse when he returned." 

Another instance of perception of an event happening at 
a distance occurred as the result of an experiment which my 
friend Mr. Gonner had arranged at an early sitting. He 
had combined with his sister in London to coax their mother 
into doing something at a certain hour on a certain day, un- 
usual for reasons to be afterwards explained. We found 



234 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

afterwards that the selection of an unusual proceeding con- 
sisted in driving round Regent's Park in a hansom cab in 
the wet. And this is what she was doing during the time 
her son was sitting at Liverpool, while the medium held 
a little book of hers. He had carefully not arranged or 
suggested anything as a suitable proceeding, but he had a 
presentiment that some not very striking occurrence would 
probably be deemed sufficient. It is impossible to say that 
the idea of a possible outdoor excursion may not have been 
latent in his mind. 

We were completely ignorant of what was going on in 
London, but Dr. Phinuit described the surroundings of this 
lady and a younger lady who was with her — described 
her as being over-persuaded to go out, though she didn't want 
to, and as going clearly through the operation of outdoor 
dressing: several minute actions, such as opening a box, tak- 
ing up a photograph from dressing-table to look at, and so 
on, being mentioned correctly. But there it stopped. We 
did not get to Regent's Park and the cab, though that was 
the stage reached while he was speaking, but Phinuit stopped 
short at the stage reached just about when the sitting began; 
though he spoke as if he was describing the present moment. 
More experiments of this nature are wanted, and very likely 
have been made by others. I do not pretend that this ex- 
periment by itself is conclusive, but it is useful as far as it 
goes. 

It was £ carefully arranged experiment, planned by myself and 
Mr. Gonner together in Liverpool, and carried out in a satisfactory 
manner through the kind aid of his relations in London. The prob- 
lem was to remove thought-transference to as many orders of remote- 
ness as possible. He therefore wrote to his sister, Miss Gonner, giv- 
ing her full particulars of what was wanted. Their mother was to be 
requested to decide on and do something uncommon at a specified hour 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 235 

without letting Miss Gonner know what it was; neither was she to 
have any inkling whatever as to a reason- for the request, nor to know 
that it was connected with her son. I find that all this was scrupu- 
lously done. With the aid of Miss Ledlie (the lady correctly de- 
scribed and named as "Annie" by Phinuit), who likewise knew 
nothing whatever as to reasons, the mother was prevailed upon to 
accede to the request; and she accordingly decided to go out under 
perfectly unlikely circumstances, accompanied by Miss Ledlie, both 
ladies being very much puzzled to account for the singular and vague 
request on the part of Miss Gonner. The latter lady, who was the 
only one of the trio who had any idea of the reason, purposely ab- 
sented herself from the house before any decision was made as to what 
should be done. The driving round the park on a wet Saturday 
morning, though sufficiently incongruous to astonish even the cabman, 
was an unfortunately passive kind of performance to select ; but con- 
sidering the absence of every kind of information or clue to the rea- 
son for doing anything, the wonder is that anything whatever was 
done. Miss Ledlie reports that after Miss Gonner had left the 
house she and Mrs. Gonner decided what to do, and a vehicle was 
sent for. Just about 1 1 she ran upstairs to see if Mrs. Gonner was 
ready, and saw her come out of her room to a landing cupboard, 
take a box out of it, put it on a ledge, open it and take out a muff, 
very much as described by Phinuit half an hour later. She had her 
cloak and things on then, and the cloak is troublesome to hook, so 
that then* would be a good deal of apparently fixing things round 
the neck. The taking up and looking at the photograph would al- 
most certainly be done before going out, though it was not actually 
seen. The "taking up a pencil to write," and the "brushing some- 
thing," if by " something " is meant a garment, are unlikely actions. 
Although the success was far from complete, Phinuit distinctly left 
us in Liverpool with the impression that " going out " was the thing 
selected to be done. 

Present: — O. J. L. as recorder and Prof. Gonner as sitter. 
O. J. L. " Tell him about his mother and what she's doing now. 
It's very important." 

Ha, ha! I'll tell you why it's important, because he 



236 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

don't know it himself. I read your thoughts then. I 
can't generally. 

Your mother is just this minute fixing her hair, put- 
ting a thing through her hair (indicating) in a room 
with a cot in it, up high. Did you know she had some 
trouble with her head? 
Sitter. " No." 

Long distance between you and your mother, separation 
between you. She's in another place. [Yes, in Lon- 
don.] . . . She's fixing something to her throat and 
putting on a wrap here, round here, and now she has 
lifted up the lid of a box on a stand (11.30). . . . 

There's been some news, some correspondence reached 
the large building where your mother is. She has had 
a cold. A young lady is with her, and I should think 
it's her daughter ; a very nice girl. She draws somewhat, 
and needlework and reads a great deal, a pretty girl with 
light hair and bluish eyes. She's speaking to your 
mother at this minute. [This is all practically correct, 
except the relationship.] 
Sitter. " Is her hair long or short? 

How do you mean ? It's fuzzy light hair. She's a little 
pale, sort of smiling; nice teeth. Your mother is going 
out. Your mother had trouble in leg, kind of rheumatic. 
There's a young lady, not Annie, with light hair, light 
complexion, good influence. [This is the daughter.] 

Thus Phinuit described all three ladies — all in fact 
who were directly or indirectly concerned in the episode 
— and described them correctly. Whatever this power 
is due to, it is entirely beyond chance. 

The following are part of Professor Conner's Notes : — 

Notes by the sitter. — In preparation for the interview 
I had written and asked my sister to persuade my mother 
to do something that was unusual for her between the 
hours of 11 and 12 Saturday morning; and to observe 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 237 

what she did. My mother was not to know, and did 
not know, that she was doing this at my request. Sat- 
urday morning at a few minutes before u, she prepared 
herself for going out to take a drive in a hansom cab, 
this striking her as an unusual procedure, as it was rain- 
ing. Such preparation involved touching the head in the 
putting on of her bonnet, of her neck and shoulders when 
she put on her cloak. Then she was specially observed 
to take her muff box from her wardrobe, to place it on 
a table, lift the lid, and take her muff out. On her 
dressing-table there stands a small photograph of my 
father, which she very frequently takes up and looks at 
intently. Whether she did this on the occasion in ques- 
tion cannot be ascertained, as it is one of those ordinary 
actions, the performance of which makes no impression. 
She cannot, however, be said to have been suffering from 
her head. There is a wooden half-tester in her room 
which might conceivably be called a " cot." 

There is here a general correspondence between her 
actions at three or four minutes to II, and those at- 
tributed to her by the medium at n. 25-1 1.30. But 
the seance was beginning at 11, and the medium began 
at once with my mother. It is then an interesting matter 
to examine whether she was trying to discover what my 
mother was engaged upon at the moment or to recall 
her actions as she last perceived them. 

The episode of Miss Ledlie's hair not having been cut 
short, when Mr. Gonner, having been told in fun that it 
had, felt dissatisfied with Phinuit's reply implying that there 
was nothing special to say about its length — dissatisfaction 
which he expressed to me — is likewise good as against 
ordinary thought-transference. 

If experiments like this can be got to succeed definitely, 
we seem driven to suppose that actions can be detected, or 



238 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

the mind of a neutral unconscious person read, at any dis- 
tance, — connexion being established by some link, such as a 
book, a bit of jewellery, an old letter, or a lock of hair, and 
sometimes no connexion being established at all. 

So even if the hypothesis of disembodied telepathic activ- 
ity could be intelligently granted I do not see that it would 
explain all the facts. Not, for instance, Phinuit's skill in 
recognising diseases, reading letters, and describing contem- 
porary events. Ordinary thought-transference does better 
for some of these; but it does not serve for all. 

If we reject every kind of telepathic explanation, it seems 
as if we should be driven to postulate direct clairvoyance; 
to suppose that in a trance a person is able to enter a region 
where miscellaneous information of all kinds is readily avail- 
able; where, for instance, time and space are not; so that 
everything that has happened, whether at a distance or close 
at hand, whether long ago or recently, can be seen or heard 
and described. Unknown letters in a box, for instance 
(which, though not read in my case, are said to be sometimes 
read), might be read on this hypothesis by harking back to 
the time before they were put in; or, if we assume it possible 
to see the future also, by looking forward to the time when 
they were taken out. A fourth dimension of space is known 
to get over difficulties like this, and an omnipresent time is 
very like a fourth dimension. 

I see no way of evading such an elastic hypothesis as this. 
It could explain anything and everything; but is it not rather 
like postulating omniscience, and considering that an explana- 
tion? It is all very well to call a thing clairvoyance, but the 
thing so called stands just as much in need of explanation as 
before. 

Undoubtedly Mrs. Piper in the trance state has access to 
some abnormal sources of information, and is for the time 



EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS 239 

cognisant of facts which happened long ago or at a distance ; 
but the question is how she becomes cognisant of them. Is 
it by going up the stream of time and witnessing those ac- 
tions as they occurred ; or is it through information received 
from the still existent actors, themselves dimly remembering 
and relating them; or, again, is it through the influence of 
contemporary and otherwise occupied minds holding stores 
of forgotten information in their brains and offering them 
unconsciously to the perception of the entranced person; or, 
lastly, is it by falling back for the time into a one Universal 
Mind of which all ordinary consciousnesses ' past and pres- 
ent ' are but portions ? Opinions may differ as to which is 
the least extravagant supposition. 

Possibly some hypothesis more simple than any of these 
may be invented, but at present I feel as if it were unlikely 
that any one explanation will fit all the facts. It rather feels 
as if we were at the beginning of what is practically a fresh 
branch of science ; and that to pretend to frame explanations, 
except in the most tentative and elastic fashion for the pur- 
pose of threading the facts together and suggesting fresh 
fields for experiment, is as premature as it would have been 
for Galvani to have expounded the nature of Electricity, or 
Copernicus the laws of Comets and Meteors. 



CHAPTER XVII 

DISCUSSION OF PIPER SITTINGS 

UNLESS the evidence of which the merest sample has 
now been given be held to constitute a sufficiently 
strong proof that the performances of this par- 
ticular " medium " are neither lucky shots nor explicable 
by cunning and imposture, it is premature to examine further 
into their significance. But as soon as these preliminary 
suppositions can be unreservedly dismissed the best plan 
is to dismiss them thoroughly and waste no more time over 
them. 

From this point of view the next hypothesis is that the in- 
formation is derived from the sitter's mind in some way or 
other: e.g., (a) by question and answer; (b) by muscular 
and other semi-occult and unconscious signalling; (c) by di- 
rect mind-reading, or influence of the sitter's thought, con- 
scious or otherwise, acting on the entranced person as 
percipient. I do not propose critically to distinguish between 
these three methods, although the first is very ancient, the 
second only recently recognised in its full development and 
power, while the third is only in process of being accepted by 
scientific men. 

A large number of instances can be easily found which are 
not explicable by either (a) or (b) , and to all those who have 
hitherto spent any labour over the records it has become 
clear that either (c) or some even less admissible hypothesis 
is necessary to explain a large portion of the results. 

Let it be clearly understood that the first question is 

240 



DISCUSSIONS OF PIPER SITTINGS 241 

whether any reading of the mind of the sitter can be con- 
sidered sufficiently efficacious. That some mind is read I 
should think most probable ; the question is not between mind- 
reading and something quite distinct; it is between reading 
the mind of the sitter and reading the mind of some one 
else. 

There are three methods of reading the mind of the sitter, 
labelled above (a), (b) , and (c) . Methods of extracting 
information from distant persons are fewer. Correspond- 
ence is one; telepathy may, I suppose, be assumed to be an- 
other. The only method known to science of extracting 
information from deceased persons is the discovery of 
documents. 

Now, in respect of correspondence and documents it is 
comparatively easy to be assured as to the use or non-use of 
these methods in any particular case. Eliminating them, if 
anything is obtained inexplicable by the agency of the sitter, 
it is to telepathy that we must look for a possible explana- 
tion. Telepathy from distant persons if that is in any way 
feasible, telepathy from deceased persons only as a last re- 
sort, but telepathy of some kind, as distinct from any con- 
ceivable method of extracting information from persons 
present : that seems to be the alternative hypothesis, to an ex- 
amination of which we find ourselves forced by an attentive 
study of the records. 

The question therefore largely turns upon proof of 
identity: proof of the genuineness of the identity claimed by 
the communicator. Now if you met a stranger in a rail- 
way-carriage who professed to have returned from the 
Colonies where he had met your friends or relations, of whom 
he showed knowledge in some decided ways, it would not at 
first occur to you to doubt his veracity, even though he was a 
little hazy about the names of relatives, and occasionally 



242 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

mixed things up ; nor would you stigmatise him as a deceiver 
if he occasionally made use of information supplied by your- 
self in course of conversation. But directly it was suggested 
that he might be a thought-reader, detailing to you the un- 
conscious contents of your own mind, it would not be easy 
rigourously to disprove the suggestion, especially if sub- 
sequent access to the friends chiefly mentioned were denied 
you. This is, however, very nearly, the problem before us. 
Only occasionaly does the question forcibly arise; most 
facts asserted are, of course, within the knowledge of the 
sitter, and none of those are of any use for the purpose of 
discrimination; but every now and then facts, often very 
trivial but not within the knowledge of the sitter, have been 
asserted, and have been more or less clearly verified after- 
wards; and in order to assist a special study of these data, 
with the view of examining how far they are really valuable, 
I made an index to them, which I published in the Proceed- 
ings, vol. vi., p. 647, as an Appendix to the Report of the 
early Piper sittings. To that index a student may refer. 



Episodes Normally Selected for Identification 

Concerning the means of identification naturally adopted 
by living people who are communicating with each other at 
a distance by telephone, under conditions in which they are 
debarred from communicating their names, or, what is the 
same thing, under conditions in which their names might be 
understood as being falsely given, Professor Hyslop made 
some interesting experiments which are thus reported in the 
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (vol. IX.,) : — 

In an introduction he explains the object and the method 
of these experiments, about which there was nothing super- 
normal at all. A telegraph line was arranged between two 



DISCUSSIONS OF PIPER SITTINGS 243 

buildings of the Columbia University, and a couple of friends 
or acquaintances were taken independently to each end of 
the line, only one of them knowing who was at the other 
end; and this one (the communicator) was to send messages, 
at first vague but increasing in definiteness, while the other 
person was to guess until he could guess correctly and as- 
suredly who it was that was at the other end of the line. 
The replies and guesses were likewise telegraphed by an 
assistant stationed with the receiver, for the guidance of the 
sender. Professor Hyslop's objects in carrying out an ex- 
tensive series of this kind of experiment are thus stated by 
himself : — 

" I may now summarise the several objects of the whole 
series of experiments. The first of these objects was not 
intimated to any one. I was extremely careful not to breathe 
it to any one, not even to my assistants, so that the results 
might be entirely spontaneous and without the influence of 
suggestion from me. 

I. To test the extent to which intelligent persons would 
spontaneously select trivial and unimportant incidents for 
the purpose of identification — that is, incidents that were 
not connected, or not necessarily connected, with the main 
habits of their lives. 

II. To test the accuracy of the identification in connection 
with both individual and collective incidents, and especially 
to test how slight or how definite the incident had to be in 
order to suggest rightly the person it was intended to repre- 
sent. 

III. To test the success and personal assurance of the 
receiver of the messages in guessing who is the true sender, 
in spite of some messages that are misleading or even false, 
but the bulk of which involves sufficient cumulative facts to 
overcome the natural scepticism and confusion caused by in- 
coherences and contradictions. 

IV. To study the sources of misunderstanding that might 
arise under such circumstances when one party was ignorant 



244 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

of the intentions of the other, and the causes of illusion in 
identification which we can determine in my experiments, and 
which are likely to occur in the Piper case." 

And he proceeds : — 

" In regard to the first of these objects, it is very interesting 
to observe the uniformity with which perfectly intelligent per- 
sons spontaneously chose what would generally be considered 
trivial incidents in order to identify themselves. This 
seemed naturally to recommend itself to them, perhaps for 
the reason that trivial circumstances represent far more isolo- 
tion than any chosen from the main trend of life, though 
I noticed no consciousness of this fact in any one. It was 
simply the instinctive method which every one tended to 
adopt. The records show very distinctly that, if left to 
themselves, men will naturally select unimportant incidents 
for proof of their identity, and it is one of the most interest- 
ing features of this choice that the individual relied wholly 
upon the laws of association to recall what was wanted, after 
deciding on the nature of the incidents to be chosen. Very 
often there were interesting illustrations of those capricious 
revivals in memory of remote incidents which not only re- 
semble so much the incidents in the Piper sittings in triviality, 
but also represent the caprices and incoherences of associative 
recall, intelligible to the subject on reflection, but hardly so 
to the outside observer. At any rate, the results in this re- 
gard completely remove all objections to the Piper phe- 
nomena from the standpoint of the triviality of the incidents 
chosen for identification; and that is an accomplishment of 
some worth." 

I may further add that though the incidents serving for 
identification sounded vague to bystanders or readers of the 
record, yet when they were explained from the point of view 
of both sender and receiver they were perceived to be dis- 
tinct enough, and to justify the leap of identification taken 
upon them. And this fact is of interest in connection with 
the Piper record, where it has been often felt by readers or 



DISCUSSIONS OF PIPER SITTINGS 245 

note-takers that sitters identify their relatives too easily and 
fancifully; for in Professor Hyslop's experiments the 
identification is often performed on still slighter grounds, 
often on what would superficially appear no legitimate ground 
at all, and yet it turns out, when both ends of the line are 
catechised (as they can not be catechised in the real Piper 
case), that these incidents are perceived to be of force ade- 
quate to support the conclusion based upon them. I have 
been constantly struck, while taking notes for a stranger 
at a Piper sitting, with the apparently meaningless incidents 
which were being referred to ; and yet afterwards ' when 
I saw the annotations,' realised their meaning and appro- 
priateness. 

Further, in answer to Professor Sidgwick's tentative 
objection that the sitters in the Hyslop experiments were 
only playing at identification, and therefore were naturally 
in a more or less frivolous mood, whereas on spiritistic 
hypothesis the Piper communicators would be serious and 
emotional and not so likely to resort to trivial incidents : we 
may imagine the case of a wanderer not able to return to 
his home, but able to communicate with it for a few minutes 
by telephone. In however strenuous and earnest a spirit 
he might be, — indeed, both ends of the line might be, — yet 
when asked to prove his identity and overcome the dread 
of illusion and personation, he would instinctively try to 
think of some trifling and absurd private incident; and this 
might very likely be accepted as sufficient, and might serve 
as a prelude to closer and more affectionate messages, which, 
previous to identification, would be out of place. And I feel 
bound to say that my own experience of the Piper sittings 
leads me to assert that this kind of genuinely dignified and 
serious and appropriate message does ultimately in many 
cases come, but not until the preliminary stages (stages be- 
yond which some sitters seem unable to get) are fairly 
passed. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SUMMARY OF DR. HODGSON'S VIEW 

OF all men at that time living, undoubtedly Dr. 
Hodgson had more experience of Mrs. Piper's 
phenomena than any other — for he devoted years 
of his life to the subject and made it practically his sole 
occupation. He did this because, after preliminary study, 
he recognised its great importance. He was by no means 
a credulous man — in fact he was distinctly sceptical, and 
many have been the spurious phenomena which he detected 
and exposed. In some respects he went, in my judgment, 
too far in his destructive career — he disbelieved in Mrs. 
Thompson, for instance, and he practically for the time 
annihilated Eusapia Palladino, the famous " physical " 
medium — but hyper-scepticism is far more useful to the 
development of the subject than hyper-credulity, and when 
such a man is, after adequate study, decidedly and finally 
convinced, his opinions deserve, and from those who knew 
him received, serious attention. 

Not that we must be coerced into acceptance, any more 
than into rejection, of facts, by any critical judgment passed 
upon them by others ; but undoubtedly his views are entitled 
to great weight. Accordingly I extract some of them from 
a paper which he published in the Proceedings, vol. xiii., 
in the year 1898, and I begin with his summary of the kind 
of statements made by the ostensible communicators as to 
the way the phenomenon appeared to them — on their side, 

246 



DR. HODGSON'S VIEW 247 

statements which I judge were partially accepted by him as 
true, but see p. 267. 

The statements of the " communicators " as to what occurs on the 
physical side may be put in brief general terms as follows. We all 
have bodies composed of " luminiferous ether " enclosed in our flesh 
and blood bodies. The relation of Mrs. Piper's etherial body to the 
etherial world, in which the " communicators " claim to dwell, is such 
that a special store of peculiar energy is accumulated in connection 
with her organism, and this appears to them as " a light." Mrs. Pi- 
per's etherial body is removed by them, and her ordinary body appears 
as a shell filled with this " light." Several " communicators " may 
be in contact with this light at the same time. There are two chief 
" masses " of it in her case, one in connection with the head, the other 
in connection with the right arm and hand. Latterly, that in con- 
nection with the hand has been " brighter " than that in connection 
with the head. If the " communicator " gets into contact with the 
" light " and thinks his thoughts, they tend to be reproduced by move- 
ments in Mrs. Piper's organism. Very few can produce vocal ef- 
fects, even when in contact with the " light " of the head, but prac- 
tically all can produce writing movements when in contact with the 
" light " of the hand. Upon the amount and brightness of this 
" light," cceteris paribus, the communications depend. When Mrs. 
Piper is in ill-health the " light " is feebler, and the communications 
tend to be less coherent. It also gets used up during a sitting, and 
when it gets dim there is a tendency to incoherence even in other- 
wise clear communicators. In all cases, coming into contact with 
this " light " tends to produce bewilderment, and if the contact is 
continued too long, or the " light " becomes very dim, the conscious- 
ness of the communicator tends to lapse completely. 

Then floods of excited emotion at the presence of incarnate friends, 
dominant ideas that disturbed him when he was incarnate himself, 
the desire to render advice and assistance to other living friends and 
relatives, etc., all crowd upon his mind; the sitter begins to ask 
questions about matters having no relation to what he is thinking 
about, he gets more and more bewildered, more and more com- 



248 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

atose, loses his " grasp " of the " light," and drifts away, perhaps to 
return several times and go through a similar experience, (pp. 
400-1.) 

For the several years during which the personality calling 
itself Phinuit continued to control the voice in the trance, 
after the development of the " automatic writing/ ' the per- 
sonalities controlling respectively the hand and the voice 
showed apparently a complete independence. 

The sense of hearing for the " hand " consciousness ap- 
pears to be in the hand, and the sitter must talk to the hand 
to be understood. I do not profess — says Dr. Hodgson — 
to be able to give any satisfactory explanation of some of the 
processes which I am describing. 

The thoughts that pass through the consciousness con- 
trolling the hand tend to be written, and one of the difficulties 
apparently is to prevent the writing out of thoughts which 
are not intended for the sitter. Other " indirect communi- 
cators " frequently purport to be present, and the " conscious- 
ness of the hand " listens to them with the hand as though 
they were close by, as it listens to the sitters, presenting the 
palm of the hand, held in slightly different positions for the 
purpose of different " direct communicators," so as to bring 
usually the region of the junction between the little finger and 
the palm towards the mouth of the sitter. The writing at 
its best is liable to include occasionally remarks not intended 
to be written, words apparently addressed by an " indirect 
communicator " to the consciousness of the hand, or by the 
consciousness of the hand to an " indirect communicator," 
or by " indirect communicators " to one another; or, in worse 
cases, where the power of inhibition seems to have been 
almost entirely wanting, the wandering thoughts of the " di- 
rect communicator " are apparently reproduced in inco- 
herent fragments, mixed up with his attempts at replies to 



DR. HODGSON'S VIEW 249 

questions of the sitter, and bits of conversation, as it were, 
between him and other " indirect communicators." 

Phinuit, for example, claims to have done much work, 
w T hile the hand has been used for writing, in keeping back, 
so to speak, various other would-be communicators. Inter- 
ruptions, nevertheless, were frequent enough until the advent 
of the group connected with " W. Stainton Moses," and the 
establishment of their supervision. Whatever else has been 
done, it seems to me that one result of this change has been 
to make the way clearer, and freer from interruptions and 
from the admixture of apparently foreign elements that pre- 
vailed so largely in earlier sittings. The new " controls " 
claim to have both the desire and the power to exclude " in- 
ferior " intelligences, whom they speak of as " earth-bound 
spirits," from the use of the " light," and, as a matter of 
fact, the perturbuations referred to have practically disap- 
peared. 

That the exclusion of influences that are continually chang- 
ing — and that may be otherwise not conducive to the 
clearest results — is a desirable thing, is also perhaps indi- 
cated by the methods which we have found most successful 
in forms of ordinary telepathic experiment.. We there take 
into consideration the attitude of mind of agent and per- 
cipient; we give the percipient a chance to receive impres- 
sions of one object before we hurry him along to another; 
we have regard to what may be the extremely sensitive state 
of his " telepathic faculty," whatever that may be, and 
whether it resides in his subliminal consciousness or not. 

Similarly, if we find a particularly good agent and a par- 
ticularly good percipient, we should think it wise to give them 
the best opportunity possible, in long series of experiments, 
to get better results, and by varying the conditions, to ascer- 



250 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

tain if possible what are the limits of, and what the causes 
most conducive to, clear telepathic communication. 

And so I think, says Dr. Hodgson, that in Mrs. Piper's 
and similar cases, the introduction of persons more or less 
indiscriminately may not be a condition for general success, 
but a condition for perpetual blundering. We can all use 
telephones now ; but when Reis and Bell and Blake and others 
were making experiments on lines that eventually led to sat- 
isfactory instruments, they would hardly have thought it 
worth while to let the general public spend their time listen- 
ing to more or less inarticulate noises through their incipient 
receiving apparatus. 

Sometimes, shortly before the hand starts writing, Phinuit 
gives notice that some one is " going to talk with you him- 
self." Sometimes the hand is " seized," and passes through 
its convulsive vagaries while Phinuit gives no sign, but talks 
on with the sitter continuously, even after the writing has 
started. To give an extreme instance of this, at a sitting 
where a lady was engaged in a profoundly personal conver- 
sation with Phinuit concerning her relations, and where I [H] 
was present to assist — knowing the lady and her family 
very intimately — the hand was seized very quietly and, as it 
were, surreptitiously, and wrote a very personal communica- 
tion to myself, purporting to come from a deceased friend of 
mine, and having no relation whatsoever to the sitter; pre- 
cisely as if a caller should enter a room where two strangers 
to him were conversing, but a friend of his also present, and 
whisper a special message into the ear of the friend without 
disturbing the conversation. 

In the case of a new communicator, however, Phinuit 
frequently requests the sitter to " talk to him" i.e., to the 
hand-writer [who is not Phinuit but " G. P." or " Rector " 
or someone else] , though Phinuit is not averse from keeping 



DR. HODGSON'S VIEW 251 

up the oral conversation as well, if this is desired. Indeed 
he seems to prefer this, and when the sitter turns to pay- 
attention to the hand, Phinuit frequently makes some such 
enigmatical remark as " I'll help him," or " I'll help to 
hold him up." At other times Phinuit will request that an 
article should be given to himself, so that he might have 
something to engage his attention, and I have known him 
to blurt out something about the article in the middle of 
the sitting, while the writing is still going on. At any 
time, apparently, under these circumstances, Phinuit can be 
evoked from his silence by talking into the ear, and will at 
once resume the communication while the writing continues 
without a break. 



It occurred to me (continues Dr. Hodgson) that possi- 
bly the left hand might also write, and that it might be 
possible to get both hands writing and Phinuit speaking, all 
at the same time on different subjects with different per- 
sons; and I remarked to Phinuit that I hoped some day to 
get a separate " control " of each finger and toe of the 
medium's body, while he could manage the voice. On Feb- 
ruary 24th, 1894, the "Edmund Gurney " control wrote 
in the course of some remarks about certain "mediums": 
" In these cases there is no reason why various spiritual 
minds cannot express their thoughts at the same time 
through the same organism." I then referred to my pro- 
posed experiment with the two hands, and said that I would 
arrange to try it some time, with " Gurney " using one hand 
and " George Pelham " the other, but that I was not pre- 
pared to make the experiment at that time. At my next 
sitting, February 26th, 1894, when I was unprepared and 
was alone, an attempt, only very partially successful, was 
made to write independently with both hands at the very 
beginning of the sitting. On March 18th, 1895, another 
attempt, much more successful, was made, when I was ac- 
companied for the purpose by Miss Edmunds. Her " de- 



252 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

ceased sister " wrote with one hand, and G. P. with the 
other, while Phinuit was talking, — all simultaneously on 
different subjects. Very little, however, was written with 
the left hand. The difficulty appeared to lie chiefly in the 
deficiencies of the left hand as a writing-machine. 

After having endeavoured as best I could to follow the 
writing of thousands of pages with scores of different writ- 
ers, after having put many inquiries to the communicators 
themselves, and after having analysed numerous spon- 
taneously occurring incidents of all kinds, I have no sort 
of doubt whatever but that the consciousness producing the 
writing, — whatever that consciousness be, whether Mrs. 
Piper's secondary personality or the real communicator as 
alleged, — is not conscious of writing, and that the thoughts 
that pass through " his " mind tend to be reproduced in 
writing by some part of the writing mechanism of Mrs. 
Piper's organism. This writing mechanism is far from 
perfect, and it frequently produces words that cannot be 
read. This entails a repetition of the word and checks the 
thought of the communicator, already reduced to the ne- 
cessity of thinking his words at the slow rate of writing, and 
of excluding other thoughts that he does not wish written, 
in a state when he has already been steeped into a state of 
partial sleep by coming into relation with an organism not 
his own, for the purpose of manifesting in my physical world. 

Regarding these phenomena, then, as supernormal, I may 
first emphasise the fact that it is much more difficult now to 
suppose that the supernormal knowledge exhibited has its 
source in the minds of living persons, than it was in the 
earlier years of Mrs. Piper's trances, when practically the 
only intermediary was the Phinuit personality. 

With the advent of the G. P. intelligence, the develop- 
ment of the automatic writing, and the use of the hand by 
scores of other alleged communicators, the problem has as- 
sumed a very different aspect. The dramatic form has be- 



DR. HODGSON'S VIEW 253 

come an integral part of the phenomenon. With the hand 
writing and the voice speaking at the same time on differ- 
ent subjects and with different persons, with the hand writ- 
ing on behalf of different communicators at the same sitting, 
with different successive communicators using the hand at 
the same sitting, as well as at different sittings, it is difficult 
to resist the impression that there are here actually con- 
cerned various different and distinct and individually co- 
herent streams of consciousness. To the person unfamiliar 
with a series of these later sittings, it may seem a plausible 
hypothesis that perhaps one secondary personality might do 
the whole work, might use the voice and write contem- 
poraneously with the hand, and pretend in turn to be the 
friends of the various sitters; might in short be a finished 
actor with telepathic powers, producing the impression not 
only that he is the character he plays, but that others are 
with him also, though invisible, playing their respective 
parts. I do not, however, think it at all likely that he would 
continue to think it plausible after witnessing and studying 
the numerous coherent groups of memories connected with 
different persons, the characteristic emotional tendencies dis- 
tinguishing such different persons, the excessive complica- 
tion of the acting required, and the absence of any apparent 
bond of union for the associated thoughts and feelings indi- 
cative of each individuality, save some persistent basis of 
that individuality itself. 

But here objectors arise. 

' Why," they will say, " if discarnate persons are really 
communicating, do they not give us much more evidence? 
We ourselves, if put in the witness-box here and cross-ex- 
amined, could do vastly better even than G. P., and why 
have so few others been able to show even an approxima- 



254 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

tion to such clearness as he exhibited? Why all the inco- 
herence and confusion and irrelevancy?" In all cases I 
should expect at first a confusion in understanding me y as 
well as a confusion in manifesting to me. If the cessation 
from manifestation has been very complete and has lasted a 
very long time, I should expect a greater bewilderment, for a 
short time at least, when it began again to manifest. These 
deficiencies and bewilderments I should expect to be much 
more marked if such a consciousness, instead of trying to 
manifest itself once more through its own organism with 
which it had practised for years, were restricted for its mani- 
festations to another organism. In such an event I should 
expect the manifestations to partake in the first instance of 
the same lack of inhibitory control, the same inability to 
appreciate my injunctions and questions, the same dreamy 
irrelevancy that characterises all the manifestations, in my 
physical world, of a consciousness that has temporarily 
ceased to manifest therein and begins once more to reveal 
itself in what I call the waking state, — varying in indi- 
vidual cases as I find they do in ordinary life, — whether it 
be after ordinary sleep, or prolonged coma, or anaesthetisa- 
tion, etc. — but with a tendency for the incoherency of the 
manifestations to be much more pronounced inasmuch as the 
consciousness is trying to regain its wakefulness towards me 
by an unwonted way. Whether such a consciousness could 
ever regain its complete former fulness in my world through 
another organism seems highly improbable. What I should 
expect to find is that through another organism it could 
only partially wake. Hence I must suppose that even the 
best of direct " communicators " through Mrs. Piper's 
trance is partly asleep. This is the first point, says Dr. 
Hodgson, which I wish to emphasise. 



DR. HODGSON'S VIEW 255 

Again, that persons just " deceased " should be extremely 
confused and unable to communicate directly, or even at all, 
seems perfectly natural after the shock and wrench of death. 
Thus in the case of my friend Hart, he was unable to 
write the second day after death. In another case a friend 
of mine, whom I may call D., wrote, with what appeared 
to be much difficulty, his name and the words, " I am all 
right now. Adieu," within two or three days of his death. 
In another case, F., a near relative of Madame Elisa, was 
unable to write on the morning after his death. On the 
second day after, when a stranger was present with me 
for a sitting, he wrote two or three sentences, saying, " I 
am too weak to articulate clearly;" and not many days later 
he wrote fairly well and clearly, and dictated also to Madame 
Elisa, as amanuensis, an account of his feelings at finding 
himself in his new surroundings. Both D. and F. became 
very clear in a short time. D. communicated later on, fre- 
quently, both by writing and speech, chiefly the latter, and 
showed always an impressively marked and characteristic 
personality. Hart, on the other hand, did not become so 
clear till many months later. I learned long afterwards that 
his illness had been much longer and more fundamental 
than I had supposed. The continued confusion in his case 
seemed explicable if taken in relation with the circumstances 
of his prolonged illness, including fever, but there was no 
assignable relation between his confusion and the state of 
my own mind. 

Returning to the actual circumstances, I say that if the 
" spirits " of our " deceased " friends do communicate as 
alleged through the organisms of still incarnate persons, we 
are not justified in expecting them to manifest themselves 
with the same fulness of clear consciousness that they ex- 
hibited during life. We should on the contrary expect even 
the best communicators to fall short of this for the two 
main reasons: (1) loss of familiarity with the conditions of 
using a gross material organism at all — we should expect 
them to be like fishes out of water or birds immersed in it; 
(2) inability to govern precisely and completely the par- 
ticular gross material organism which they are compelled 



256 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

to use. They learned when living to play on one very com- 
plicated speaking and writing machine, and suddenly find 
themselves set down to play on another of a different make. 
There are, indeed, three kinds of confusion that need to 
be distinguished by the investigator: (i) the confusion in 
the " spirit," whether he is communicating or not, due pri- 
marily to his mental and bodily conditions when living; (2) 
the confusion in the " spirit " produced by the conditions 
into which he comes when in the act of communicating; (3) 
the confusion in the result due to the failure of complete 
control over the writing (or other) mechanism of the me- 
dium. (2) and (3) are increased very much by the failures 
of sitters to understand the process. Thus when a " Mrs. 
Mitchell " control was requested to repeat words which we 
had difficulty in deciphering, she wrote: — 

No, I can't, it is too much work and too weakening, and I cannot 
repeat — you must help me and I will prove myself to you. I cannot 
collect my thoughts to repeat sentences to you. My darling husband, 
I am not away from you, but right by your side. Welcome me as 
you would if I were with you in the flesh and blood body. [Sitter 
asks for test.] ... I cannot tell myself just how you hear me, 
and it bothers me a little . . . how do you hear me speak, dear, 
when we speak by thought only? Your thoughts do not reach 
me at all when I am speaking to you, but I hear a strange sound and 
have to half guess. . . . 

Of such confusions as I have indicated above I cannot find 
any satisfactory explanation in " telepathy from the living " 
(continues Dr. Hodgson), but they fall into a rational order 
when related to the personalities of the " dead." 

The persistent failures of many communicators under 
varying conditions; the first failures of other communicators 
who soon develop into clearness in communicating, and 
whose first attempts apparently can be made much clearer by 
the assistance of persons professing to be experienced com- 
municators; the special bewilderment, soon to disappear, of 
communicators shortly after death and apparently in con- 



DR. HODGSON'S VIEWS 257 

sequence of it; the character of the specific mental auto- 
matisms manifest in the communications; the clearness of 
remembrance in little children recently deceased as contrasted 
with the forgetfulness of childish things shown by commu- 
nicators who died when children many years before, — all 
present a definite relation to the personalities alleged to be 
communicating, and are exactly what we should expect if 
they are actually communicating under the conditions of Mrs. 
Piper's trance manifestations. The results fit the claim. 

On the other hand these are not the results which we 
should expect on the hypothesis of telepathy from the living. 
If the hypothesis of telepathy from the living is acted upon 
in anything like the ordinary experimental way, the super- 
normal results will be lessened. If the investigator per- 
sistently refuses to regard the communications as coming 
from the sources claimed, he will not get the best results. 
If, on the other hand, he acts on the hypothesis that the com- 
municators are " spirits " acting under adverse conditions, 
and if he treats them as he would a living person in a similar 
state, he will find an improvement in the communications. 

And having tried the hypothesis of telepathy from the 
living for several years, and the " spirit " hypothesis also for 
several years — says Dr. Hodgson — I have no hesitation 
in affirming with the most absolute assurance that the 
" spirit " hypothesis is justified by its fruits, and the other 
hypothesis is not. 

Note Added October, igog. 

A book has just been sent me from America, published by 
Sherman French & Co. under the title " Both Sides of the 
Veil," which containes a supplementary account of Mrs. 
Piper and her phenomena from the pen of Miss Robbins, a 
lady who has had considerable experience of sittings, being 
very sympathetic to the controls, and who often acted as con- 
fidential stenographer for Dr. Hodgson, as well as for some 
important civic officials in Boston. Sometimes she was al- 
lowed to sit alone with Mrs. Piper, especially for voice sit- 
tings, taking her own notes. It is a selection from these 



258 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

records of her own that she has now printed, prefacing it 
with an Introduction and Description written in an earnest 
and believing spirit. Her point of view and mental attitude 
are somewhat different from ours, and hence her record is 
usefully supplementary, since she sets forth the obvious ap- 
pearance of the phenomenon in a consecutive and readable 
manner. 

Without endorsing her estimate of value throughout, I 
can heartily commend the book to the attention of those who, 
without being too critical, feel an interest in the manner and 
the substance of communications thus received, and who 
would like to hear more of them. 



CHAPTER XIX 

RECENT PIPER SITTINGS. GENERAL 
INFORMATION 

THE preceding account of my own sittings dates 
from 1889-90. I saw Mrs. Piper again on 9 
Nov. 1906 at Liverpool, where she had just ar- 
rived from America, and was staying in the house of Mrs. 
Isaac Thompson of Liverpool, whose acquantaince she had 
made on her previous visit to this country. Another series 
of sittings then began, but at a rate of only two or three 
per week instead of two a day, and of the general character 
of these I now propose to give an account. 

Since our first English experience with Mrs. Piper a great 
mass of material had been accumulated in America, under 
the management of Dr. Hodgson, and the manner of the 
sittings had somewhat changed. In the old days com- 
munication had always been made with the voice, and any 
writing done was only brief and occasional. Communica- 
tions are now almost entirely in writing, and only under ex- 
ceptional circumstances is the voice employed. 

The manner of preparation was as follows. A quiet 
room was selected in which interruption need not be feared, 
a fire was provided for warmth, and the windows were open 
for ventilation. A comfortable chair was placed near a 
table, on which was a pile of from four to six cushions or 
pillows, on which the medium sitting in the chair and lean- 
ing forward could securely rest the side of her head when 
sleep came on, — not burying her face in the cushions, but 

259 



260 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

turning it to the left side so as to be able to breathe during 
the trance. If it ever happened that the pillows incommoded 
the breathing, they had to be adjusted and pressed down 
by the experimenter in charge, so that air obtained free 
access to the mouth and nose. On the right hand side of 
the pillows, either on the same or on a small subsidiary 
table, the writing materials were arranged, namely a large 
pad or block-book (10" X 8") of ioo blank sheets all 
numbered in order, and four or five pencils of soft lead, 
2 B or 3 B, properly cut and ready. 

It was the duty of the experimenter in charge to record 
all that the sitter said. This could generally be done side- 
ways on the same sheet without interfering with the 
medium's hand. He also had to arrange the pad so that 
the hand could conveniently write upon it; and to tear 
off the sheets as they were done with. No attempt was 
made to economise paper; the automatic writing was large 
and scrawling, and did not often begin at the top of the 
page. Sometimes a good deal of writing was obtained on 
a single page, sometimes only a few lines, and occasionally 
only a few words. The tearing off of the old sheet was 
quickly done; and the hand waited the moment necessary; 
though sometimes, when in the midst of an energetic mes- 
sage, it indicated momentary impatience at the interruption. 

Mrs. Piper and her daughters often had breakfast with 
the family, though occasionally she breakfasted in her room. 
On ordinary days she went shopping or sight-seeing, or was 
otherwise ordinarily occupied; but on sitting days she went 
back after breakfast to her own room to be quiet. At the 
time fixed for the sitting, say io or 10.30 a. m., Mrs. Piper 
came into the arranged room and seated herself in the chair 
in front of the pillows; then the experimenter in charge sat 
down on a chair near the table, leaving a vacant chair be- 



RECENT PIPER SITTINGS 261 

tween him and the medium, for the sitter; who at my sittings 
was sometimes present from the first, but at those held in 
London was introduced only after the trance had come on. 
Mrs. Piper sat with her hands on the pillows in front of her; 
about five minutes of desultory conversation followed, then 
heavy breathing began, and the head of the medium pres- 
ently dropped on to her hands on the pillows and turned 
itself with its face to the left. 

Then almost at once the right hand disengaged itself 
and fell on the table near the writing materials. After 
about 30 seconds of complete quiescence, this hand alone 
"woke up " as it were; it slowly rose, made the sign of the 
cross in the air, and indicated that it was ready to write. 

The experimenter then gave the hand a pencil, placing it 
between fore and middle fingers; it was at once grasped, and 
writing began. First a cross was drawn, and then the word 
"Hail" was written, followed usually by " We return to 
earth this day with joy and peace"; or "We greet you 
friend of earth once again, we bring peace and love"; or 
some such semi-religious phrase, signed " R," which stands 
for " Rector " the ostensible amanuensis. 

In the old days the control had styled itself " Phinuit "; 
now Phinuit never appears, and the control calls itself 
Rector. 

In the old days the tone was not so dignified and serious 
as it is now: it could in fact then be described as rather 
humourous and slangy ; but there was a serious under-current 
constantly present even then; the welcomes and farewells 
were quaint and kindly — even affectionate at times — and 
nothing was ever said of a character that could give offence. 
I judge that stupid familiarity or frivolity on the part of 
a sitter — for which, however, there was no excuse — 
would have been at once rebuked and checked. 



262 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

In the old days the going into trance seemed rather a 
painful process, or at least a process involving muscular 
effort; there was some amount of contortion of the face, and 
sometimes a slight tearing of the hair; and the same actions 
accompanied the return of consciousness. Now the trance 
seems nothing more than an exceptionally heavy sleep, en- 
tered into without effort — a sleep with the superficial ap- 
pearance of that induced by chloroform; and the return to 
consciousness, though slow and for a time accompanied by 
confusion, is easy and natural. 

A sitting used to last only about an hour ; and on the rare 
occasions when there is a voice sitting now, an hour is the 
limit; but a writing sitting seems less of a strain, and was 
often allowed to last as much as two hours, though not 
more. 

In the old days, when sittings were more frequent, there 
were degrees of intensity about them. Occasionally, though 
rarely, trance declined to come on at all ; and sometimes, even 
when it did, the loss of consciousness seemed less than com- 
plete. Under present conditions the trance is undoubtedly 
profound, and the suspension of normal consciousness un- 
mistakably complete. Once, but only once in my recent ex- 
perience, the trance refused to come on, and the attempt at 
a sitting had to be abandoned till next day. 

Usually after purposely placing herself under the familiar 
conditions to which she is accustomed, Mrs. Piper is able 
to let herself go off, without trouble or delay. 

Great care was taken of the body of the medium, both 
now and previously, by the operating intelligence. She was 
spoken of usually as " the light," sometimes as " the 
machine," though the word " machine " commonly signified 
only the pencil. 

If anything went wrong with the breathing, or if there 



RECENT PIPER SITTINGS 263 

was insufficient air in the room, or if the cushions slipped so 
as to make the attitude uncomfortable, the hand wrote 
11 something wrong with the machine," or " attend to the 
light," or something of that sort; and the experimenter 
amended the arrangements before the writing went on. 
The whole thing was as sensible and easy as possible, as 
soon as the circumstances and conditions were understood. 
Each experimenter, of course, handed down all the informa- 
tion and Hodgsonian tradition of this kind to the next, so 
that all the conditions to which Mrs. Piper was accustomed 
could be supplied beforehand, and so that no injury would 
happen to her bodily health. 

The following illustrates the care taken of the physical 
conditions and the way they are spoken of. It is an extract 
from a sitting held by Mr. Dorr at Boston in 1906. 

(Rector interrupting a "Hodgson" communication.) Friend, you 
will have to change the conditions a moment. 

[At the beginning of the sitting only one of the two windows in the 
room was open a very little way. A few moments previous 
to this time H. J. Jr. noticing that the room was a little 
close had opened the other window, and G. B. D. had nearly 
closed it again.] 

G. B. D. What is wrong with the conditions ? Do you want more 
air or less? 
Well, there will have to be a change in the surroundings, there 
will have to be more strength, what is it, air, yes, air. And 
a good deal more just now. Hodgson takes a good deal 
of strength when he comes, but he is all right, he under- 
stands the methods of operation very well. (The window 
was now opened wide.) That is better. Now the light 
begins to get clear. All right, friend. 

As the time drew near to the two-hour limit, which has 
been set as a period beyond which it is undesirable to persist, 



264 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

and sometimes at the end of about an hour and a half, or 
an hour and three quarters, from the commencement, the ex- 
perimenter in charge gave a hint that the sitting must 
terminate soon; or else the controls indicate the same thing, 
and they then begin to clear up and take farewell. A sitting 
usually concludes as it began, with the writing of a serious 
sentence invoking the blessing of the Most High upon the 
sitter and the group. 

The coming out of the trance was gradual, and semi- 
consciousness lasted for several minutes, during which 
muttered sentences were uttered, and the eyes, if open at all, 
only glared in sleep-walking fashion; until almost suddenly 
they took on a natural appearance, and Mrs. Piper became 
herself. Even then, however, for half an hour or so after 
the trance had disappeared, the medium continued slightly 
dazed and only partly herself. During this time her eldest 
daughter usually took charge of her. But the trance itself 
was so familiar to them all that the daughters were not the 
least anxious, and in another room went on with their letters 
or needlework unconcerned. After a sitting, one of them 
was usually called and took her mother for a stroll in the 
garden. Then everybody had lunch together and talked of 
ordinary topics, nothing being said about the sitting, and no 
ill result of any kind being experienced. It seemed a normal 
function in her case. The experimenter meanwhile had 
collected the papers and arranged them in order, and had 
removed the pencils and other appliances. Subsequently it 
was his business to write out legibly all the material ac- 
cumulated during the two hours of sitting, to annotate it 
sufficiently, and send it to a typewriter. 

The actual record is of course preserved for exact 
reference whenever necessary. A record was also made of 
the remarks of Mrs. Piper during the period of awaking 



RECENT PIPER SITTINGS 265 

from trance. These were more or less mumbled and 
difficult to hear, but they were often a continuation of what 
had been obtained during trance, and generally contained 
useful passages; though part of them nearly always con- 
sisted of expressions of admiration for the state or experi- 
ence she was leaving, and of repulsion — almost disgust — 
at the commonplace terrestrial surroundings in which she 
found herself. Even a bright day was described as dingy 
or dark, and the sitter was stared at in an unrecognising 
way, and described as a dull and ugly person, or sometimes as 
a negro. Presently, however, the eyes became intelligent, 
and she recognised some one — usually Lady Lodge first 
— and then with a smile welcomed her by name, and speedily 
came to. 

Coming to ordinary social details : it is not an impertinence, 
but is justified by the special circumstances of the case, to 
state that the family is an admirable one, and that we re- 
gard them as genuine friends. 

At the time of Mrs. Piper's first visit her daughters were 
children. Now they are grown up, and are very useful to 
their mother. Nothing in any way abnormal or unusual is 
to be noticed about them, and their mother expresses it as 
her sincerest wish that they will not develop her power. 
For though she must realise the value of her services to 
science, she cannot but feel that it to some extent isolates her 
and marks her out as peculiar among her neighbours in 
New England, and that the time spent in the trance state 
must have made a distinct inroad on her available lifetime. 
This however is to some extent the case with any occupation, 
and it is as the duty specially allotted to her that she has 
learnt to regard her long service, now extending over a 
quarter of a century. 

In speaking of messages received from a certain " con- 



266 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

trol," it is not to be understood in general that that control 
is actually manipulating the organism; it may be always, 
and certainly is in general, merely dictating through an 
amanuensis as it were, — the actual writer or speaker being 
either " Rector " or " Phinuit," who again may or may 
not be a phase of Mrs. Piper's personality. 

In the old days, undoubtedly, the appearance was some- 
times as if the actual control was changed — after the fash- 
ion of a multiple personality; where as now I think it is 
nearly always Rector that writes, recording the messages 
given to him as nearly as he can, and usually reporting in 
the first person, as Phinuit often did. I do not attempt to 
discriminate between what is given in this way and what 
is given directly, because it is practically impossible to do 
so with any certainty; since what appears to be direct con- 
trol is liable to shade off into obvious reporting. That is 
to say, if a special agency gets control and writes for a 
few minutes, it does not seem able to sustain the position 
long, but soon abandons it to the more accomplished and 
experienced personality, Rector. In the recent series there 
appeared very little evidence of direct control other than 
Rector. 

We shall speak however of the " Gurney control," " the 
Hodgson control," etc., without implying that these agents 
— even assuming their existence and activity — are ever 
really in physical possession of the organism; and, even 
when they are controlling as directly as possible, they may 
perhaps always be operating telepathically on it rather than 
telergically — operating, that is to say, through some 
stratum of the mind, rather than directly on any part of the 
physical organism. It is rather soon as yet to make definite 
assertions regarding the actual method of control, — there 
are too many unknown quantities about the whole phenome- 



RECENT PIPER SITTINGS 267 

non, — at the same time Dr. Hodgson has thought it worth 
while to report the general aspect of the phenomenon as 
it is said to appear to the Communicators themselves; he 
does this on page 400 of Proc. xiii. (A portion is quoted 
below on page 247.) And in the next few pages he goes 
on to indicate his own independent view of what is occurring, 
giving a detailed description which my own smaller experi- 
ence, as far as it goes, tends in a general way to confirm. 
Readers interested in these particulars may here conveniently 
refer to further remarks on the subject in Chapter XL 

In the old days Mrs. Piper sat upright in her chair, with 
head somewhat bowed and eyes closed, and with both hands 
available for holding objects or a hand of the sitter. Now 
her head reclines throughout on a cushion, with her face 
turned away. The right hand alone is active, being en- 
gaged nearly all the time in writing, with intervals of what 
looks like listening. The dramatic activity of the hand is 
very remarkable: it is full of intelligence, and can be de- 
scribed as more like an intelligent person than a hand. It 
turns itself to the sitter when it wants to be spoken to by 
him ; but for the most part, when not writing, it turns itself 
away from the sitter, as if receiving communications from 
outside, which it then proceeds to write down; going back 
to the space — u e., directing itself to a part of the room 
where nobody is — for further information and supplemen- 
tary intelligence, as necessity arises. (C. F. p. 134.) 

When Mrs. Piper in trance wrote a name in the old days 
— as Phinuit did sometimes — the writing was usually 
mirror-writing; but sometimes she wrote a name on paper 
held to her forehead, so that the pencil was turned towards 
her face in that case the writing was ordinary. If this 
should happen to have been so consistently, it is curious. 
But now that Rector writes, voluminously, the mirror-writing 



268 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

only crops up occasionally ; and usually the only reversal con- 
sists in giving the letters of a name in inverted order, e. g. } 
Knarf instead of Frank. 

One other point deserves to be here mentioned: — 
In the days of Phinuit considerable facility was shown 
in dealing with strangers. Persons introduced anonymously 
had their relations enumerated, and their family affairs 
referred to, in a remarkably quick and clever way : so much 
so that they sometimes thought that their special case must 
have been " got up " beforehand. The facility for dealing 
with strangers in this way is now much less marked. The 
introduction of a stranger now makes things slow and labori- 
ous, and is on the whole discouraged; for although the old 
characteristics continue to some extent, the tests now given 
are mainly of a different kind. The early procedure was 
useful at the beginning, and it continued useful for a good 
many years till a case of investigation was firmly established; 
but it must have seemed tedious to prolong that method 
further, so the group of controls associated with Rector 
assured Dr. Hodgson that they would take the trance in 
hand and develop it on better and higher lines. 

As to how far the change is an improvement, there have 
been at times some differences of opinion; but in view of the 
remarkable tests recently given under what, though of several 
years' standing, may be called, the new regime — tests which 
have been and are being dissected out by Mr. Piddington — 
there can be but little doubt about the reality of the improve- 
ment now. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE ISAAC THOMPSON CONTROL 

I SHALL first take as an example of the present style of 
communication a continuation of the case of the Isaac 
Thompson family, which is referred to on pp. 223 
and 259. 

Members of this family had made the acquaintance of 
Mrs. Piper, as there stated, during her stay with us in Liver- 
pool in 1890. In the interim in 1903 Isaac Thompson had 
died, and they were anxious to get into communication with 
him if possible. 

The first attempt at reaching this control through Mrs. 
Piper occurred during a business visit of the son, Edwin 
Thompson, to America in 1906; when Dr. Hodgson in- 
troduced him as a stranger — not by name — to Mrs. Piper 
in trance at her house near Boston. 

The effort was, I consider, not really successful; partly in 
all probability owing to the inexperience of the sitter. The 
position is a very difficult one. He had had no previous ex- 
perience of the sittings; because in 1889, when Mrs. Piper 
was in Liverpool, he was only eight years old. Besides, 
the character of the sittings had changed, and the writing 
of Rector is not at all easy for a novice to read. 

Suffice it therefore to say that Edwin Thompson was in- 
troduced anonymously by Dr. Hodgson after the trance had 
begun on Monday, nth December 1905, at Boston. 
Messages purported to come from his father, who seemed 
to wonder how his son had "managed to find him." It 

269 



270 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

was however a poor sitting, and evidentially is best treated 
as nearly blank. 

Undoubtedly there ought to have been another sitting 
without delay, to clear up this unsatisfactory interview, 
which clearly established nothing whatever ; though I believe 
that Mr. E. Thompson is on the whole more satisfied with 
it than these remarks of mine would suggest; but unfortu- 
nately he had to return to England immediately, and at the 
next sitting he was not present. From some points of view 
— however unfortunate it undoubtedly was — this absence 
of any connecting link at ensuing sittings held by Dr. Hodg- 
son or others in America, may be held to strengthen the 
evidence, provided anything further was obtained — - as it 
was; since now the facts could hardly be supposed to be ob- 
tained from the sitter ; American strangers naturally knowing 
nothing about the family, and Dr. Hodgson being a com- 
plete stranger to them all, except E. T. whose slight ac- 
quaintance he had only just made. 

The sitter on 12th December 1905, was a Miss M., who 
the same evening sent a special delivery letter to Dr. Hodg- 
son conveying a message entrusted to her by the control 
George Pelham. She wrote: — 

" ' There was a message for you,' George saith. * Tell Hodgson 
that name the gentleman in the spirit tried to get was 
Agnes.' They said you would know, and it was the day 
before." 

This evidently refers to a name " Anna " attempted near 
the end of the omitted sitting. The name Agnes is quite 
appropriate — being the name of a daughter — and would 
have been jumped at by Edwin Thompson if it had occurred 
while he was present as sitter. It is noteworthy that 
" Agnes " was a name that Phinuit in the old days had always 



THE ISAAC THOMPSON CONTROL 271 

boggled over, pretending he could not pronounce it; his best 
attempt being something like Annese or Anyese, see vol. vi., 
p. 478 ; but when taken unawares he could pronounce it well 
enough, though he quickly changed it to Adnes before re- 
peating it. (See p. 509, vol. vi., Proc. S. P. R.) 

On the next day, 13th December 1905, Dr. Hodgson had 
a sitting; when Rector, after script relating to other matters 
had been obtained, wrote as reported below : — 

Sitting with Mrs. Piper in America, 13th December 1905. 
Present — Dr. R. Hodgson alone. 

Didst thou receive the message from George? 
R. H. Yes, last night, thank you. 

Have you the influences of the young man's father? 
R.H. No. 

It seems almost an injustice to us not to have met him once 
more, as it would be a great help to the communicator 
himself and all on our side. 
R. H. I have explained all to him, and he will send me some articles 
of his father after he returns to England. He had no 
more time here, and is already on his way back. He had 
no opportunity, before leaving home, to know what he 
ought to do. 
We understand, and since the spirit is now waiting with our 
good and faithful co-worker George [Pelham] we shall 
after preliminary matters are cleared up listen to what 
he hath to say. 
R. H. I shall be glad. 

That young man hath some significant light himself. 
(Scrawls were now made, ending " help mc") 
R. H. Kindly tell me anything you wish. 

I hold this bottle in my hand for identification. . . . 
Bottle ... in my hand. 
R.H. Yes? 

I had much to do with them when in your world. 



272 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

R. H. Who are you ? 

I used to be address [sic] Dr. I got. 

[He had medical ambitions, and was partner in Thompson & 

Capper. O. J. L.] 
(G. P. communicating.) He is trying very hard. Let him 

dream it out H and he will be all right. 
If he says anything clearly, congratulate him, help him by 
words of encouragement only, remember he has nothing 
or no one except yourself to attract him here. 
R. H. Yes. Is he the young man's father? 
He is surely. Agnes is his daughter. 
R.H. Yes? 

So he tells me. 
R. H. Shall I talk to him? 

Just encourage him a little by telling him who you are, etc., 
what your object is, etc. It will help him greatly. 
R. H. I will explain in answer to your inquiry who I am, — that I 
am an old friend of Professor Lodge. 
Lodge. 
R.H. Yes. 

What my old neighbour in Lrv. . . . 
(Excitement in hand which cramps and twists about.) 
calm friend (Between sp.) 
Li . . . 

(Excitement stops the writing again.) 
Drugs . . . 
Do not go. Wait for me. 
Liverstool. 
R. H. Liverpool, you mean. 
I say so. 

I say say I say so I say so I say so [sic] . . . 
R. H. Yes I understand. 
I say so. 

Liverstool [Livestool?] 
R. H. Liver-pool. 

Pool. R[R=Rector.] 



THE ISAAC THOMPSON CONTROL 273 

I live I live I had three daughters one son [true] 

(scrawls over sheet) . . . 
I want to help them all all all. God help me to help them to 
understand that I am alive. 
R.H. Yes? 

I am confused [confussed] No doubt but I will be better 
soon it is so hard to understand. You look so heavy, 
a black cloud comes over you and I can scarcely see you. 
Do you know me? 
R. H. I do not know you personally, but I now know your son who 
came with me. Did you not see the lady in England 
with Professor Lodge through whom you are now com- 
municating? I mean the light? 
Oh I cannot tell you yet, wait until I find my way about. 
R.H. Don't . . . 

Tell me all about yourself first, I want to get acquainted 
with you. 
R. H. Yes I will. Kindly listen. 

I'll do my best, because I want to reach my family, very very 
much. 
R. H. I am interested in psychical work and sent Mrs. Piper many 
years ago to England, — don't you remember seeing Mrs. 
Piper? 
Piper? 
R. H. Yes, and the . . . 

(Perturbation in hand) 
Oh yes I remember Piper. Was Mrs. Piper a Medium, an 
American lady? 
R.H. Yes. 

Oh yes Oh yes I do I do, but I'll find her out and come to 
you if it is a possible thing. What is your name? 
R. H. My name is Hodgson, Richard Hodgson. 

Can't you spell it for me? 
R.H. Hodgson. 

Oh he is telling me thank you greatly. 
Let me think. 



274 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

I am so anxious to understand all about this then I can talk 
with you. 
R. H. Well, now, Mr. . . . 

Where are we? I left my body some time ago. Where are 
you? 
R. H. This is America where I am now. 

America? 
R.H. Yes. 

Well well that is very interesting to me. 
You are in the body? 
R. H. Yes I am. 

Well ? happy ? 
R. H. Yes, both, thank you. 

Splendid I begin to understand. 
R. H. Well now I will tell you more about myself and Lodge. 

My wife is better thank you. I am watching over them. But 
my business will be better in time. I am trying to take 
care of it for the children. 
R. H. Yes. Mr. . . . did you [say] that there were three 
daughters and one son in the body? 
Yes . . . 

My wife wore glasses . . . spectacles we called them I 
think. 
R. H. You mentioned her eye trouble. 

Oh may be so, it was on my mind. 
Who is the lady with my boy? 
R. H. I don't know anything about her. 
No . . . 

Well I understand. I had a business called . . 
sounds like drugs. 
I am helping all I can [this was evidently Rector] 

(Hand to Sp. I.) 
he must rest -f~ . . . [this is the signature of Impera- 
tor] 
R. H. I shall be so pleased for you to come again and send any 
messages you wish to your family. 



THE ISAAC THOMPSON CONTROL 275 

he will return in a moment friend but I command him to go 
for a moment. -f-R. 

(Thump of hand.) 
Mrs. . . . kindly 

Your friend George is the very best helper we have. 
R. H. I am very grateful to him. 

Did his spirit seem any clearer? R. 
R. H. Yes I should judge that he will probably be a very clear com- 
municator shortly, 
talk with him in general when he comes whether he gives you 
a chance or not. . . . chance or not . . . he is 
very earnest but he does not understand yet our methods. 
R. H. No. 

I say I shall return and help you. 
was very very glad I came. 
R. H. Thank you very much. 

I could not understand while you were here but I could see 

him after you left. T 

R. H. I understand. 

Waking Stage, 
(During the waking stage Mrs. Piper said) 
. . . Thompson [sic] . . . with you all. 

[This was the first time the name had been mentioned.] 
Before I let you go . . . you must take this over to Mr. 

Hodgson. 
Tell him . . . 
R.H. "Tell him"? 

Tell Mrs. Thompson I'm very glad to be here. It is better 

so. I am grateful for all God has done to help me. 
. . . the truth will find its way. 
Farewell, fare thee well . . . peace . • • 

( Pause. ) 
There were two gentlemen resembling each other. One was 
George, the other was another man looked something like 
him. 



276 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

This is an improvement on what had been obtained at 
the sitting before, and indicates considerable anxiety on the 
part of the Isaac Thompson control to manifest himself, 
since this time he had to overcome the difficulty of talking 
to a complete stranger; and save for the mention of my 
name as a common friend of Hodgson and himself, it is 
doubtful if anything could have been got. The excitement 
which the hand displays, as here at the mention of Lodge 
and Liverpool, is characteristic. On such occasions it twists 
and squirms about and frequently breaks the point of the 
pencil by pressure against the paper. It is as if the nerves 
conveyed too strong a stimulus to the muscles, so that until 
the excitement abates no writing can go on. 

The bottles and drugs mentioned are symbolic of his pro- 
fession. (See p. 525, Proc. vol. vi., and cf. a similar case 
near foot of page 554, vol. vi.) The things said are all 
true and appropriate. 

One of the most curious episodes is the way in which Mrs. 
Piper's name is introduced. R. Hodgson says, in order to 
introduce himself, 

R. H. I am interested in psychical work and sent Mrs. Piper many 
years ago to England, — don't you remember seeing Mrs. 
Piper? 
Piper? 
R. H. Yes, and the . . . 

(Perturbation in hand.) 
Oh yes I remember Piper. Was Mrs. Piper a Medium an 
American lady? 
R.H. Yes. 

Oh yes oh yes I do I do, but I'll find her and come to you 
if it is a possible thing. What is your name? 
R. H. My name is Hodgson, Richard Hodgson. 
Can't you spell it for me? 



THE ISAAC THOMPSON CONTROL 277 

R. H. Hodgson. 

Oh he is telling me thank you greatly. 

The perturbation in hand thus begins again when the 
name Piper is remembered, and then the Thompson control 
speaks of her as a medium he had known, and says he will 
try to find her now in order to communicate. 

When it is remembered that the whole thing is being ob- 
tained through Mrs. Piper's body, the curiosity of the posi- 
tion is obvious. 

The sentence " Oh, he is telling me, thank you greatly " 
signifies that whereas the Thompson control had been try- 
ing to understand with difficulty what Dr. Hodgson was 
saying, he was now being told on his own side by G. P. or 
Rector, whom he thanks, — all this by-play being, now as 
often, automatically recorded by the writing hand. 

The way in which he receives the information that Hodg- 
son is in America, — where in 1884 Isaac Thompson had 
been with me alone for nine weeks, — is also very natural ; 
and his inquiry as to whether Hodgson is a living person 
or not is curious. 

It is quite true that Mrs. Thompson wore spectacles, 
though of course this was within Mrs. Piper's own knowl- 
edge. In the previous set (p. 524, vol. vi.) a sister of Mr. 
Thompson's was represented as unfamiliar with them and 
wanting them taken off. This also was a correct apprehen- 
sion of fact at the date referred to. 

11 The lady with my boy " may well refer to his son's 
engagement: though that was not in Mrs. Piper's normal 
knowledge, and presumably not in Dr. Hodgson's either. 
But of course this sort of thing can be guessed; and E. T. 
in his own sitting had clearly hinted it. 

In fact although there is nothing very much obtained, and 



278 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

little that can be called really evidential, because of Mrs. 
Piper's previous normal knowledge, — provided any clue to 
the particular family had been conveyed during Edwin 
Thompson's sitting, in the course of which, though he had 
certainly not given his name, I observe that he had mentioned 
the name " Theodora " and also spoken of " the business," 
— there is nothing that is inapplicable or foreign to the 
person represented, or in the least untrue, as soon as com- 
munication really began; and there is much in the dramatic 
details that I find distinctly interesting. 



Waking Stage 

While coming out of trance Mrs. Piper usually speaks, or 
rather mutters, at intervals; and her words are taken down, 
or such of them as can be heard. It is worth while to quote 
one record of these ejaculations — which sometimes convey 
interesting residual information, — and I select the following 
as a fairly typical case of an unimportant and unevidential 
but characteristic coming to. 

Notes intruded in square brackets are added merely in 
order to place the reader in the same sort of position as 
regards understanding the significance of these subconscious 
utterances as a recorder finds himself in after an experience 
of many sittings. 

I am aware that such explanations may irritate a certain 
group of people who have been all their lives familiar with 
trance speeches of one kind or another; but in the first place 
I must beg them to observe that when I explain things I 
am not assuming ignorance on the part of specialists. It 
would be impossible to write in an explanatory fashion on any 
branch of even the most orthodox science if thereby one ran 
the risk of offending specialists. In ordinary subjects it is 



THE ISAAC THOMPSON CONTROL 279 

safe silently to assume that experienced people will under- 
stand that their knowledge is taken for granted. Besides, 
trances are by no means identical: each has distinctive 
features. Mrs. Piper's trance has itself undergone modifica- 
tion in the course of the nineteen years since I first knew her ; 
and it may be useful to quote the kind of phrases employed 
by her during recovery — if only as a psychological study. 
They are seldom identical, but they have a strong family 
likeness. Here then they are, on an occasion after one of 
the sittings with the Isaac Thompson family : — 

" I saw you before. It is fearful. [This means that she 
dislikes changing from her trance state and coming back 
to ordinary surroundings.] 

They are going away. It's awful. Too bad. Snap. [This 
refers to a sensation which she calls a snap in the head, 
which nearly always precedes a return to consciousness. 
Sometimes it heralds almost a sudden return; and she is 
always more conscious after a snap than she was before; 
but often it takes two snaps to bring her completely to. 
What the snap is I do not know, but I expect it is some- 
thing physiological. It is not audible to others, though 
Mrs. Piper half seems to expect it to be so.] 

What are all the people doing? 

[Probably some of the sitters were moving about and leaving 
the room, under the mistaken impression that the snap 
meant that interest was over.] 

I saw a man in the light, which looked like Mr. Thompson. 
Kept waving his hand. The man with the cross was help- 
ing him out. 

[" The man with the cross " is intended to signify Imperator.] 

The moon was shining (or it may have been the ' sun.' It 
only signifies that her recent surroundings have been bright 
and luminous.] 

Has an old lady with him. She is helping him read some- 
thing. I could see his face perfectly. 



280 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

Noise, [probably something going on outside.] They were 

talking to me. I came in on a cord, a silver cord. They 

were trying to tell me something about the children in the 

body. Lovely place. 
Buzzing in my head. Another snap. 
Miss Thompson. I thought you were small. Looking 

through opera glasses at wrong end. You grew larger. 

Did you hear my head snap? It breaks. 
I forgot where we were sitting. 
Why Mrs. Thompson, I didn't know you were there. My 

cold." 
[Mrs. Piper was troubled with a cold at this time. Her 

intelligence was now normal.] 

In further illustration of the waking stage, showing how 
similar it was in 1906 to what it is now, and as a further 
description of the curious " snap " sensation, I subjoin an 
extract from the termination of a sitting with Henry James, 
Junior and Mr. Dorr in America in 1906. 

I thought you were a stranger. 

Well, did you hear my head snap? 
H.J. Jr. No. 

Didn't hear it? It is a funny sound. Don't you hear it at 

all? Sounds like wheels clicking together and then snaps. 

There it is again. 
G. B. D. Now you are really back. 



CHAPTER XXI 

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PIPER SITTINGS 

FOR a further account of these sittings my paper in 
vol. xxiii. of the Proceedings of the Society for 
Psychical Research must be referred to. It would 
take too much space to quote further here. I must be 
satisfied with a few comments. 

It is noteworthy how natural it is for a sitter to ignore 
all the normal knowledge which Mrs. Piper must un- 
doubtedly possess, and to treat her as a separate individual 
when in the trance state. Her controls exhibit the same 
tendency; and, while of course nothing evidential can be 
made to depend upon the supposition, it does appear to be 
really true that that knowledge has little or no influence on 
the knowledge shown by the controls. 

I surmised this at an earlier stage — - as recorded on page 
206, and subsequent experience has only confirmed the im- 
pression. 

As a minor instance of this fact may be mentioned the 
surprise and eagerness shown by the Isaac Thompson con- 
trol when after some delay he was told that Mrs. Isaac 
Thompson was present at the first sitting subsequently held 
in her house in Liverpool. For of course Mrs. Piper had 
known perfectly well the people likely to be present at the 
sitting, and had seen them assemble; it was no news to her. 
But indeed everything tends to show that during thorough 
trance the normal consciousness is in abeyance. And, al- 
though it is true that we cannot claim anything as evidential 

281 



282 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

when it comes out in the trance if it had ever been known 
to Mrs. Piper, I myself am unable to trace much, if any, 
connexion between the trance knowledge and her normal 
knowledge. For instance, a sitter introduced by name is no 
more likely to have his name mentioned during a sitting than 
one who is introduced as an anonymous stranger. I make a 
general statement of this kind believing that careful analysis 
will bear it out, and as a challenge to anyone who will be- 
stow time and labour upon the work of analysing the records 
from this point of view. It seems to me a desirable piece 
of work for someone to undertake. 

Of course a sceptic may say that this kind of kenosis is 
due to mere cunning; but the time for suspicion of that kind 
is over with most of us investigators. It is a genuine piece 
of psychological information that we now desire, not any- 
thing analogous to detective work. Detective work is neces- 
sary in its proper time and place, but there are cases which 
have run that gauntlet, and require more advanced treatment. 
The Piper case is one of them. 

When I speak of " Mrs. Piper's normal knowledge," I 
mean of course knowledge acquired in her ordinary state. 
Knowledge acquired while in the trance state is certainly 
reproducible when in that state, but it appears not to be ac- 
cessible in her ordinary state ; and vice versa. I do not call 
that " normal knowledge." 

The controls themselves feel that they have no direct 
access to the normal Mrs. Piper; so, if they want to com- 
municate with her, they must utilise some other agency, — 
for instance, they send messages through her own daughter, 
with whom they occasionally communicate during trance. 
To illustrate this, I extract a small fragment from a quantity 
of serious conversation which took place between them and 
Dr. Hodgson's executors soon after his death. Mr. Dorr 



GENERAL REMARKS 283 

was conducting the sitting and speaking the remark labelled 
G. B. D. 

G. B. D. We are anxious that the light in the future should not go 
adrift and astray, and anxious that past relations should 
not be wholly interrupted by any change of environment 
or other. Well, no one could be more anxious about 
these things or more concerned than we ourselves are, 
and it hath disturbed us not a little to see the conditions 
on the earthly side. We are not quite pleased with them, 
because the light cannot know itself, it cannot under- 
stand itself. It is shut off from communication with us 
on our side and it must remain in ignorance of the meth- 
ods which we pursue in our endeavours to reach the mor- 
tals on the earthly side. 

G. B. D. But through the daughter, Alta, I have felt that you might 
in a sense reach her. 
Yes, that is the only way. 

I do not adduce this as evidence, but as illustrative of 
how the phenomenon represents itself; for when it does so 
consistently it is reasonable to suppose that something true 
is indicated. 

It will be observed in many of the records how natural 
it is for a sitter, or for the experimenter in charge, to 
challenge a " control " to furnish some evidence of his 
identity, or to demand from him a sudden answer to a 
specific question. 

It is quite natural, and I suppose inevitable: but that it 
also is to some extent unreasonable, must be admitted. 
Trivial domestic incidents are not constantly in one's 
thoughts, and only when in a reminiscent and holiday mood, 
or under the stimulus of friendly chat, does any vivid 
recollection of such incidents normally occur. 

It is a common experience that characteristic touches, 



284 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

specific phrases and sparkling sayings, are most likely to 
come out in the give and take of lively conversation. Silent 
and solitary brooding, though it may generate valuable and 
even brilliant ideas in a few cases, does not as a rule, lead to 
anything specially personal, or identifying; rather the con- 
trary, — such ideas seem to spring up impersonally, or to 
be supplied from outside, so to speak. 

It is proverbially difficult to control thoughts to order, 
and a communicator suddenly asked to remember an identi- 
fying circumstance, or to send an appropriate message, may 
feel rather as a person feels when set in front of a phono- 
graph and told to " say something brilliant for posterity." 
Under these conditions anyone with the gift might compose 
some half-doggeral verse perhaps, or might remember some 
poetry more or less accurately, — and indeed that is what 
it appears the controls sometimes actually do — but usually 
there would be hesitation, requests for delay, and fishing for 
suggestions, — something like what we find in the records. 
The controls unfortunately cannot be assisted by the give 
and take of friendly and stimulating conversation; for, under 
the conditions of a sitting, the intercourse on our side is 
nearly all " take " and very little " give." It is admittedly 
dangerous for a sitter to talk freely, because the conditions 
then become " loose," and more may be inadvertently given 
away than was intended, so that thereafter nothing obtained, 
however otherwise good, can be considered evidential. But 
then — it must also be admitted — no conversation can be 
in the full sense stimulating or satisfactory if its animation 
is hampered by a constant desire to withhold information, 
lurking in the background. 

In order to be human a conversation should be whole- 
hearted and free from arrieres pensees on both sides: but 
under evidential conditions that seems quite impossible. It 



GENERAL REMARKS 285 

is one of the many disadvantages under which the investiga- 
tion of the subject inevitably labours. 



Trivial Recollections, and Relics 

It will by some people — who might otherwise be in 
favour of some form of spiritistic hypothesis — be thought 
absurd that reference should be made under such circum- 
stances to trifles like ordered but undelivered pictures, and 
to trivialities like the possession of a handkerchief or other 
relic. The usual excuse is that these things are mentioned 
for purposes of identification; but though there may be some 
truth in that view, there is in my judgment more reason 
than that for such incidents; and they are not contradictory 
of the notion of survival. The fate of objects once regarded 
with affection, or even interest, and possessing any kind of 
personal association, does not seem to have suddenly be- 
come a matter of indifference. Scattered through all the 
sittings are innumerable instances of this sort of curious 
memory of and interest in trifles; so that it would be merely 
tedious to refer to pages where they occur. Every experi- 
enced sitter knows that such references are the commonest 
of all. What is the explanation? I am not prepared with 
a full explanation ; but, granted the most completely spiritistic 
hypothesis, it would appear that the state after death is 
not a sudden plunge into a stately, dignified, and specially 
religious atmosphere. The environment, like the character, 
appears to be much more like what it is here than some folk 
imagine. This may be due to the effort and process inci- 
dental to the condition of semi-return, under which alone 
communication is possible: it appears to involve something 
less than full consciousness. But it goes rather further than 
this, since a few of the controls when recently deceased (a 



286 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

pious old lady in particular is in my mind) have said that the 
surroundings were more " secular " than they expected; they 
have indeed expressed themselves as if a little disappointed, 
though they nearly always say that the surroundings are 
better than they are here. Anyhow, there appears to be no 
violent or sudden change of nature ; and so any one who has 
cared for trinkets may perhaps after a fashion care for them 
still. 

But there must be more than that even. Objects appear 
to serve as attractive influences, or nuclei, from which in- 
formation may be clairvoyantly gained. It appears as if we 
left traces of ourselves, not only on our bodies, but on many 
other things with which we have been subordinately associ- 
ated, and that these traces can thereafter be detected by a 
sufficiently sensitive person. This opens a large subject 
which I have touched upon once or twice already in other 
papers — never with any feeling of certainty or security — 
and which requires careful handling lest its misunderstand- 
ing pave the way for mere superstition. 

But to return to common sense, and without assuming 
anything of this kind, even hypothetically, how do we know 
that we are right in speaking of some things as trifles and 
other things as important? What is our scale or standard 
of value? 

No one expects people to be wholly indifferent as to the 
posthumous disposal of their property, provided it amounts 
to several thousand pounds. They make careful wills, and 
would, if they knew, be perhaps displeased if the provisions 
were not adhered to, or if their final will was lost. 

Very well, on what scale shall we estimate property, and 
how shall we measure its value? 

It is conceivable that, seen from another side, little per- 



GENERAL REMARKS 287 

sonal relics may awaken memories more poignant than those 
associated with barely recollected stocks and shares. 

That at any rate is the kind of idea which naturally sug- 
gests itself in connexion with the subject. Our terrestrial 
estimate of the comparative importance of things is not 
likely to be cosmically sufficient or perennially true. 

However that may be, it is clear that the various Piper 
controls do not estimate the importance of property by any 
standard dependent on pounds sterling. As a variant on 
old letters, old lockets, and other rubbish, in which Phinuit 
seemed to take some interest, I once gave him a five-pound 
note. It was amusing to see how at first he tried to read it 
— in his usual way by applying it to the top of the medium's 
head; — and then on realising the sort of thing it was, how 
he crumpled it up and flung it into a corner with a grunt, 
holding out his hand for something of interest. Needless 
to say, I did not share in this estimate of value, and, after 
the sitting, was careful to rescue the despised piece of paper 
from its perilous position. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE MYERS CONTROL 

NOW let us enter upon the episodes where F. W. H. 
Myers was supposed to be controlling, or at least 
communicating, while I was present. I shall be- 
gin, however, with communications, received not through 
Mrs. Piper, but through other mediums. Most of the 
Piper-Myers messages were obtained, and must be dealt with, 
by Mr. Piddington; because they often involve cross-corre- 
spondences, which belong to his department of the work. 
Moreover, in the recent series of sittings I had but few 
conversations with the Myers control as modified or repre- 
sented by Mrs. Piper — what we call the " Piper-Myers " 
or Myers?. I fear I did not give him many chances, and 
one day was rather rebuked by Rector for not affording 
the Myers? control more opportunity for utterance. This 
was because I usually had something else ready that I wanted 
to try. So neither from Myers P nor from Hodgson P did 
I get very much in these recent sittings. 

And of course in the old days, 1889-90, both had been 
in full vigour of life. 

But it so happens that long before Mrs. Piper arrived, 
and very soon after Mr. Myers's death, I had had a couple 
of unexpected and exceptional sittings with the well-known 
Mrs. Thompson, at that time still living at Hampstead. 
(It is hardly necessary to say that she has no connexion 
with the Mrs. Isaac Thompson referred to as a sitter with 
Mrs. Piper in previous chapters.) She had suspended 

288 



THE MYERS CONTROL 289 

sitting altogether; but she kindly allowed myself and my wife 
to sit twice with her, — she said she felt impelled to do so, 
— on two occasions when she happened to be visiting friends 
in or near Birmingham. 

Mrs. Thompson was so well acquainted with Mr. Myers 
and his family that no evidential importance can be attached 
to remarks and messages concerning that family, obtained 
through her mediumship, however natural they may be. 
These are therefore all omitted. Reference to trivial facts 
and domestic affairs are good as evidence only in the case of 
unknown strangers: in other cases they are only of use as 
contributing to the dramatic character and personal expres- 
sion of the whole. From this point of view I regret some 
omissions, which nevertheless have been considered necessary. 

Mrs. Thompson's trance is an easy trance, not so complete 
or striking as Mrs. Piper's, but it is a state of suspension, 
or partial suspension, of ordinary consciousness, and is ac- 
companied by a change of voice and manner. 

In the sitting which follows, " Myers " was represented 
as controlling and speaking for part of the time, but the 
sittings began with the " Nelly " control, and when the 
Myers control is not manifestly intended to be speaking, the 
words may be taken as emanating either from Nelly or from 
one or other of Mrs. Thompson's ordinary controls — it does 
not matter which, since I am not studying Mrs. Thompson's 
phenomena, but am giving what appear to be messages from 
or about Myers, who died on 17 January, 1901. 

First Thompson Sitting at Edgbaston 

The first appearance of a Myers control in my experience 
was on Thursday, 19 February, 1901, that is to say just 
about a month after F. W. H. Myers's decease. Present, 



2 9 o AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

only myself and wife with Mrs. Thompson. At 6 o'clock 
the control " Nelly " began. She had been incredulous 
about his death, and indeed had declared that she could not 
find him anywhere and did not believe that he had come over. 
See J. G. P.'s paper, Proceedings, vol. xviii., p. 240, also 238. 
But now she was just beginning to admit the fact: — ■ 

Tuesday, 19 February 1901. Sitting with Mrs. Thomp- 
son at 225 Hagley Road, Birmingham. Notes by O. J. L. 
and M. L. 

6.00 p.m. ("Nelly" control speaking.) I was allowed to go on 
his birthday to see him. He will have plenty of work 
to do, for he has promised to send messages to 74 people. 
All the people said he was dead, but I did not believe it; 
and though I saw him, I thought he only came over for 
his birthday like in a vision. But I see him now. It 
is the truth, it is the truth (excitedly). Let us see 
if he can talk sense. He was talking on the platform 
with you. It was at a station by a racecourse. [I had 
met him at Liverpool; seen him off from the landing 
stage to America. But this is unimportant.] He will 
come when he is more wakened up — before 9 o'clock. 
You be ready at 25 minutes to 9. He will be awake 
by then. He would rather think and realise for a little 
space by himself. He is sensible, for a spirit. 
Before you came, mother was praying. She said " Come 
and tell the truth for truth's sake." 
(At 6.30 Mrs. Thompson came to.) 

Then we had dinner, and at 8.30 the Control " Nelly " appeared 
again, saying 

What is the matter with the little girl's throat? her ear 
seems to have made her throat ache. One of yours — a 
twinkle one. 



THE MYERS CONTROL 291 

[This is of course a mere friendly interlude. One of my 
twin daughters was often troubled with ear-ache about 
this time.] 

(Here there was an incipient attempt at a Myers control, 
and an incident at a Club was referred to. Then another 
control said) 

Do you know he feels like the note-taker, not like the spirit 
that has to speak. I think he will speak presently. 

(A short interval of apparent discomfort, and then " Myers " 
purported to communicate) 

Lodge, it is not as easy as I thought in my impatience. 
Gurney says I am getting on first rate. But I am short of 
breath. 

Oh, Lodge, it is like looking at a misty picture. I can dis- 
tinctly feel I ought to be taking a note of it. I do not feel 
as if I were speaking, but it is best to record it all. 

Tell them I am more stupid than some of those I had to 
deal with. Oh, Lodge, what is it when I see you? Was 

it the Albemarle Club we went to when I talked about 

oh, it leaves off. 

Sidgwick knows I am with him. He said that he saw me 

in the morning of Oh dear, it always leaves off in the 

interesting places. 

I can hear myself using Rosa Thompson's voice. 

I want to convince Sidgwick. He says " Myers, now we 
are together, you convince me that I am sending my mes- 
sages, and that she is not getting them from us some way." 

He still wants me to show him. He says he saw me in the 
morning of the day he went to Trevelyan. He met Tre- 
velyan, and he saw me first. I am trying to show him the 
way. It is funny to feel myself talking when it is not my- 
self talking. It is not my whole self talking. When I 
am awake I know where I am. Do you remember the day 
I was with you here? When I went home that day I 
was ill. I had such a bad night. It is in my diary. It 



292 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

was in May, I think. I was very ill. [This about Tre- 

velyan seems to refer to an incident dealt with by Mr. Pid- 

dington. See Proc. vol. xviii., pp. 239, 241.] 
[The description of the feeling of the control while engaged 

in communication agrees closely with that of Dr. Hodgson 

based upon his experience of Mrs. Piper. See for instance 

vol. xiii., pp. 366, 380, 404, 405. And the forgetfulness 

immediately following may be compared with statements 

in chap, xviii above.] 
O. J. L. Do you want to say anything about the Society? 

What Society? 
O. J. L. You remember the S. P. R. 

Do not think that I have forgotten. But I have. I have 
forgotten just now. Let me think. You know, Lodge, 
when you have wanted a thing thirty or forty years, and 
at last got it, you do not think of much else beside. Let 
me think, and bit by bit give it you. I used to get 
better evidence when I let them say what they wanted 
to say. 

They tell me it was my best love that Society. They will 
help me. 

What did Battersea say about it? 
O. J. L. I do not know. 

I am going to talk to you clearly and very distinctly in 
April. I do not know my Mother's name now. . . . 

What James gave me to make me sleep did not do me any 
good. 

There is plenty of good matter in those papers that I left 
if it is gone through. You remember the dis- 
cussion there was over Hyslop's paper and its length? 
If it is put in too much detail, there is too much of 
it; and yet if you put it fully it is there for those who 
want it full ; and you can pick out the points too. . . . 

I have not seen Tennyson yet by the way. 

through passages, before I knew I was dead. I thought 
I had lost my way in a strange town, and I groped my 



THE MYERS CONTROL 293 

way along the passage. And even when I saw people that 
I knew were dead, I thought they were only visions. 

I have not seen Tennyson yet by the way. 

I am going to be bold and prophesy already. I am going 
to see you in April. I am going to know who I am by 
then. 
O. J. L. And will you then read what you wrote in the envelope ? 

What envelope? — I shall be told. 

Ernest does not mind now. What do they mix me up with 
him for? (Jocularly.) Do they think I want to shine 
in his glory? 

[This was evidently a reference to the Times obituary no- 
tice, which I had written, but to which some one in the 
Times office appended a supplementary statement that 
F. W. H. M. had been a joint translator of Homer to- 
gether with Walter Leaf and Andrew Lang; whereas it 
is public and general knowledge that this was only true 
of his brother Ernest.] 

I wanted you to do for me what I did for Sidgwick. [/'. e. 
write a notice in the Society's Proceedings.] 
O. J. L. I am going to; and so are Richet and James. 

Ah, Richet : Yes, Richet knows me ; and James will do it 
well. 

I never finished those letters I was writing — letters to be 
published. 

[Probably meaning the book Human Personality. ~\ 
[Then the control seemed to change, and it went on] : — 

He says he must stay and try and help. He says, Bless 
him when he has so much to do. He says " Brothers I 
have none excepting Lodge." He wants Lodge to be 
President if he dare spare the work; but he says " Do not 
rope yourself, but keep the group, keep the group to- 
gether. It will soon take care of itself." 
O. J. L. We are trying to get Rayleigh. 

That would be splendid, but that is too good to hope for. I 
think it will be you. Thank you for being helpful to 



294 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

him. You have helped him. Man's sympathy is more 
helpful than anything else, and with sympathy every- 
thing slips into place. Among the things which are not 
evidential you get things which are. They must take 
it all. Those that seek only the evidential things will 
not get them. 

There are so many he would like to help. He promised, 
and he will have to. 

When he comes in April he will remember a great deal 
more. He will remember what he wrote for you in the 
envelope. 

(Trance ends about 10.30 p. m.) 

The impersonation at this sitting was really a remarkably 
vivid and lifelike one. It occurred only a month after the 
death of F. W. H. Myers, and the state of confusion in which 
the Myers control found itself seemed very natural. Indeed 
it would be difficult for me to invent an experience or a 
communication more reasonable, under the supposed circum- 
stances, or more what we might suppose to be " natural," 
than what we actually got. The necessity for still " convinc- 
ing Sidgwick " struck us as amusingly characteristic; so did 
several other little traits, such as that Myers " felt as if he 
ought to be taking notes " — a point on which F. W. H. M. 
was always specially insistent. And as to his temporary for- 
getfulness of the existence of the S. P. R., though it will 
probably be pounced upon as an absurdity by scoffers, and 
though it was of course quite unexpected, yet even that struck 
us at the time as humanly natural and interesting. And in- 
deed so it does now. (Compare Hodgson's statement on 
p. 259.) With the portions omitted, and everything taken 
into account, this sitting seems to me about the best of the 
Myers sittings in which I have been immediately concerned. 



THE MYERS CONTROL 295 

Without being strictly evidential, it was in fact as convincing 
as anything that could be imagined of that kind. 

This was in February, 1901. A further communication 
was promised for April, but no opportunity for another 
sitting came until May 8th, and then it came quite unex- 
pectedly and without being arranged for. In fact at that 
time it was unlikely that any sitting would occur, since we 
had all been definitely told that Mrs. Thompson's sittings 
were suspended, — or rather that they were intended hence- 
forth to cease. 

Second Thompson Sitting at Edgbaston 

On may 8th, 1901, Mrs. Thompson happened to come to 
Birmingham again, to see her connexions there; and she in- 
cidentally visited us at our temporary home in the Hagley 
Road. 

I made the following contemporary notes, and it seems 
to me worth while to reproduce them as a representation 
of the circumstances of the case at this time. 

From O. /. L.'s Note-book, 9 May, 1901 

After dinner Mrs. Thompson spontaneously asked Mrs. 
Lodge to take her up into my study, saying as she went up- 
stairs that she felt only half conscious, and as if she were 
going off. 

Upstairs we three alone sat and talked for some time. 

At last " Nelly " appeared and notes began : Mrs. Lodge 
taking them as well as myself. Mrs. Lodge spoke no word 
during the trance from first to last. 

The sitting was dim and unsatisfactory, and in most re- 
spects apparently at the time a failure. It lasted about an 



296 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

hour and a half, one continuous trance, and at the end Mrs. 
Thompson was much agitated; not exhausted, but weepy; say- 
ing how much she disliked the idea of coming back to con- 
sciousness and leaving the conditions in which she had just 
been. She said she had no recollection of what had been said ; 
and this appeared to be the case. She also told me, before 
the sitting began, that of late she had been quite unconscious 
of any communications, that is to say, she could not remember 
their contents, but that she was under the impression that 
during the last month or so she had had three or four 
trances when no one was there, at different times, and that 
once she found herself waking on the floor with a feeling 
of great satisfaction and contentment. 

She further said that the sudden cutting off of all attempts 
at communication had been a great blow to her, and seemed 
to upset her physically to some extent. Also that she had 
been promised something for her birthday, April 22nd, — 
evidently connecting it with me. " Nelly " had indeed prom- 
ised me a sitting in April [as recorded in last sitting], though 
not for any particular date. But it seems she had expected 
it on the 22nd. However I had no sitting in April - — noth- 
ing till this May 8th. 

The difficulties of clear utterance at times rendered it 
necessary for me to help the ideas out, or anticipate them as 
far as I could. My notes aim at recording the sense of 
what was intended, and can only be of interest to those who 
understand. 

Additional Note written on 11 May, 1901 

The above was dictated before copying the notes, and 
gives my contemporary impression of the sitting; but on 
reading over the notes I find them better than I expected; 
and now think that though at the time it seemed a bad 



THE MYERS CONTROL 297 

sitting to everybody concerned, it is not really bad; though 
the utterances were so feeble and confused that to a novice 
it would have been nearly all gibberish. A little gibberish 
remains undeciphered in places; but is recorded in case any 
meaning can be attached to it. I do not think it is gib- 
berish really, — only as heard and taken down. It prob- 
ably had sense if it could have been heard and understood, 
though most likely not at all important sense. 

Second Sitting with Mrs. Thompson at 225 Hagley Road, 
Birmingham, 8 May, 1901, from 9.00 till 10.30 p. m. 

Present — O. /. L. and M. L., both taking notes. 
{Nelly speaking.) 

P'fessor Lodge, what is that umbrella they have put up and 
made it all dark ? I wish they would take it away. 
(Further indications followed that she had tried to communi- 
cate but found it dark.) 
[This evidently refers to the suspension of sittings; Mrs. 
Thompson, for some private reason, declined to sit for the 
last few months, and only did it now as a special favour, 
and because she felt internally urged to do so.] 
I have not seen Mr. Myers, not once ; I have not seen him since 
they put that umbrella up. 
Nelly then appealed to me to try and believe her and receive her 
statements sympathetically and not with an undercurrent of suspicion, 
explaining that such undercurrent befogged her, and that she could 
give me better things if I was sympathetic. I asked her not to regard 
me as in any way hostile, and she said " No, I don't feel like that to 
any of the Marshall family." This remark was not amplified, nor 
did it seem understood by Nelly herself. 

It is perhaps worth noting incidentally that my grandmother and 
my wife's father were both Marshalls, though no relation whatever to 
each other, nor to Frederic Myers's relations of that name. 

Nelly then sent a few messages to Mr. Piddington, and inciden- 



298 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

tally remarked, that she felt as if in a pound in the middle of a field, 
and as if she could not see clearly the people on the other side of 
the enclosure, and that communication was very difficult and not 
clear to-day. 

Then followed some convulsive movements and a sort of internal 
colloquy of which only fragments were audible. They appeared 
however to indicate a confused conversation between Nelly and Mr. 
Myers, Nelly asking him to " come in," and Mr. Myers saying that 
he had been told not — that he had understood the communications 
were suspended for a time. 

But this was only an impression gathered from the confused mut- 
terings. A further impression was that Mr. Myers mistrusted the 
presence of a third person, and was being reassured by Nelly that it 
was only Mrs. Lodge: — 

It's only Mrs. Lodge whom you love. 
No I don't love her. 
It's only Lodge's wife, who will help. 
More than I anticipated much more. 
With other barely intelligible fragments of internal colloquy. 
Ultimately the conversation with me began again, but in a very 
halting and indistinct fashion — no marked personality at all — 
somewhat as if Nelly were half giving messages and half personating 
Mr. Myers, and doing both badly and with difficulty. 
The following however are my notes of what was said: 

Mr. Myers is worrying about something connected with Mr. 
Sidgwick, something that was not understood or that was 
not put down. He [H. S.] had some Jews in College and 
he could not do it on Saturday. 
Tell Fielding that he is doing something that is waste of 
time. The Times said something about it and said it was 
valuable. 
[But I understood the communicator to mean that it was 

not. I do not know what work is being referred to.] 
The first shock to my dearest hopes. 
So stupid not to tell them what I wished. 
The time was gradually passing. 



THE MYERS CONTROL 299 

You know Sidgwick and I had many disappointments like this 

[when communications would not come clear?] 
I thought I should do better, but I cannot. 
We had many, a year, a hundred, at Newcastle. Bitter dis- 
appointments. 
But when I can give pound [muddle] 
Given a grain and found as much as would have been, for 

Sidgwick, in that hundred. 
Mrs. Sidgwick was cold on a brick floor. 
A hundred results nil. 
It is true Lodge it is true. 
I tried on the Sunday with — 
I saw the receptacle, but not this one. It was Hodgson and 

Smith and I. We were all in my room together, and I 

told him. 
I told him I would find no difficulty, if he were in difficulty, 

in putting things straight; 
But it is. 

[Meaning that it was much harder than he thought.] 
I thought I knew better than be such a miserable failure. I 

thought I would come and read it. 

[Apparently or possibly meaning the sealed letter.] 
I had gone away. I thought I was not to communicate now. 

It is not the time now. 
I wished you would all write to me. I was so far away. I 

pined to hear from you all. 
My philosophy did not help me much. 
I feel just as lonely. Lodge, it is just as they say, you grope 

in fog and darkness. 
I do not know, when I come to talk to you, about the other 

side. 
But I must do as I promised. 
I feel I am selfish still. 
I wanted it for my own satisfaction. 
Further indications that the conditions under which he was were 
not altogether to his liking, not at least when trying to communicate ; 



300 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

and also further statements that he could not very clearly realize the 
conditions on that side when he was trying to communicate, and that 
now he was wishful to pass on and up and not stay to redeem his 
promises. 

Is the typhoid better? 

What are you doing in this place? 

[Apparently meaning strange and unfamiliar surroundings, 
the temporary house in Birmingham which I had taken, 
and which he had never seen.] 

I had plenty of this kind of unsatisfactory experience [mean- 
ing bad sittings.] 

James went with me. 

I seemed to be taken from all my pain and suffering into 
light. 

I hardly like to tell you what I wanted to do, it seems so 
selfish now, but I wanted to go and talk to Tennyson, 
whom I idolised, (cf.p. 298.) But I was told that I 
must suffer for my promises, and then I could have what I 
wanted. 

I wish I had not been taken so far; it makes it difficult to 
communicate. 

Then — referring as I thought at the time, to Mrs. Thompson's 
unexpected and undesired trance which she had told me of, when she 
woke up and found herself on the floor, but perhaps more probably 
referring to one of the incidents mentioned by Mr. Piddington in 
Proc, vol., xviii., pp. 147, 148 — the Control went on, 

I did not throw her on the floor. 
It was Talbot — Talbot Forbes. 
It was not I. I wanted her to know I was there, but Talbot 

only wanted her to tell his Mother. 
Why does she [meaning apparently the Medium] pray to me 

and beg me to come, when she knows I want to be cleansed 

from earth first? I do not want her to fetch me back 

at all times. 



THE MYERS CONTROL 301 

They keep on calling me. I am wanted everywhere. I hear 
them calling, and I cannot tell who it is at first. 

They tell me I am wanted. But I want to concentrate in a 
few places, or in one place, and not to be split up. 

Do appeal to them not to break me up so, and leave me not 
clear in one spot. 

I am only one now, and the noise of you all calling makes me 
feel I cannot. Someone is calling me now. 

What did Miss Edmunds want with me? On Friday she 
called. 

[A letter from America referring to this, May 3rd, arrived 
later.] 

Tell Richet I shall meet him in Rome. I shall speak to him 
in Rome on the third day of the Congress. 

I heard them describing how I died, and I could not stop 
them. 

[Referring apparently to some unpublished Piper sittings in 
America.] 

I could not say it, but they were translating like a schoolboy 
does his first lines of Virgil — so terribly confused and 
inaccurate. But somehow I could not help it. It was not 
me communicating, yet I saw it going on. They had some- 
thing from me on the 15th. 

I tried to communicate on a 15th. 

[These things are referred to in Mrs. Verrall's report. Proc, 
vol. xx., pp. 207-9. See also notes below.] 

I tried by writing. 

Moses — Stainton Moses. 

They mixed the deaths up — his death and my death. It 
applies to him and not to me. 

[Apparently referring to some unpublished and to me un- 
known account of the death-bed.] 

How easy to promise and how difficult to fulfil. 

Make one appeal to them to let me be at rest for two or three 
weeks after they get the note. After Hodgson hears that 
I have tried, however badly, ask him not to call me, and 



302 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

tell him that if he does, they will not let me hear him. 
I have gone back from where I was that night. I could 
hear what she (the Medium) was saying, and keep a check 
on it, but now I cannot hear what is being said : I can only 
think the things, and false things may creep in without my 
knowing it. 

Have you ten days work in a week? I cannot protect you 
from the calls upon you as they may protect me. 

Do you think, Mrs. Lodge, he has ten days work a week? 

(Then the Nelly Control reappears.) 

P'fessor Lodge, do you know I have seen such a funny thing. 
I have seen Mr. Myers talking as if to a stick right through 
Mother's body; and while he was talking to it some one 
came up and touched it, and it all got confused, and he could 
not think why it went funny. 

He seems to have to talk through this stick, and yet it keeps 
on being interfered with by other people. 

I wish Mother was not so wicked ; because when Mr. Myers 
wants to go to sleep and be quiet, Mother will not let him. 
She will call him. You must tell her not to. Tell her it 
is wicked to call him. When he wants to go to sleep and 
be quiet she keeps him back. She must not do it. 

[I promised to give her the message; which I did after the 

ranee, and she then admitted that she thought of him 

frequently and urgently, but that she would try to refrain.] 

(Nelly went on,) 

Do you know last Monday when I went to Dr. Van Eeden's 
house; he called for me and we went. Mr. Myers came 
and told me he was calling. We both went, yes, on Mon- 
day. He has got an impression that Mr. Myers helped him 
to call me. Mr. Myers said "Let us go and see 'old 
Whiskers ' in his little bed and laugh at him." He is 



THE MYERS CONTROL 303 

much more lively when he is talking to me, and much 
more wakened up than when he is talking down that 
stick. [Cf. Proc. S. P. R., vol. xviii., p. 201. See also chap- 
ter ix. above.] 

But he does seem worried, he gets no rest. Some one has 
called him in a glass bottle — yes, a crystal. 

Oh yes, and he said it was not he that wrote when Miss 
Rawson wrote and said he told her. But it was not he 
that was writing. You know when; Miss Rawson wrote 
two very full sheets in the middle of a Gurney letter. He 
said it was not he, but neither was it fraud. He does not 
want you to stop the phenomenon. He wants to study 
it. You are not to say that it was wrong and get it 
stopped. He likes to watch the somnambulistic thing at 
work. It is not he that is doing it, and yet he is look- 
ing on. 

He does not see how it is worked, but he finds this more 
interesting than the genuine communications. 

He did not rattle the curtains either. Eva — now do not 
think I am talking about Mrs. Myers, but Mrs. Eva; 
they had a shaking of the curtain, and thought it was he. 
It was not he, but it was not cheating, and he does not 
want you to make them think that they are cheats. He 
does not know how it is worked, but he is studying, and 
he thinks it will help a great deal if he can understand 
how the cheating things that are not cheats are done. 
It is not cheating, and yet it is not him doing it. . . . 
There was no stick that went through any one's body 
there. 

He says that others tell him it was just the same with them. 

Sometimes when he thought they were communicating they 
were not, and yet they knew about it. 

He says he is finding out how honest non-phenomena are 
to be accounted for. 

Apparently dishonest phenomena are phenomena of extreme 



304 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

[interest?] apart from the spirit which purports to be com- 
municating. 

[This last part was slowly recited by Nelly, like a lesson not 
understood by her.] 

I can't help what he says. 

I must go now. 

(End of sitting 10.30 p.m.) 

Notes on this Sitting 

Some of the remarks reported above seem to indicate a 
connexion with statements made in Mrs. Verrall's auto- 
matic writing of the same period, about which Mrs. Thomp- 
son knew nothing. Thus there appears a certain similarity 
between the remark " Mr. Myers is worrying about some- 
thing connected with Mrs. S." and the attempts — misun- 
derstood at the time — in Mrs. Verrall's script between 
April 19 and May 8, as related in Proceedings, vol. xx., 
pp. 195-198, to describe where Mrs. Sidgwick was to look 
for something of the nature of a book. Again " I tried 
on the Sunday with — I saw the receptacle but not this one " 
may perhaps be connected with the sudden impulse on Sun- 
day, March 17th {Proceedings, vol. xx., p. 221), which 
induced Mrs. Verrall to write automatically and which pro- 
duced the first reference to Mrs. Forbes in what eventually 
became a long series of cross-correspondences between those 
two automatists. 

Finally, there seems a close correspondence between the 
above remarks as to difficulties produced by simultaneous 
efforts at communication and similar observations in Mrs. 
Verrall's script of the same day and approximately the 
same hour (Proceedings, vol. xx., pp. 207-209). Thus 
in Mrs. Thompson's sitting the Myers control speaks of 
" the noise of you all calling makes me feel I cannot. 



THE MYERS CONTROL 305 

Someone is calling me now"; he also says " false things 
may creep in"; and the Nelly control describes how, just 
before, " someone came up and touched " the stick through 
which communication was being made, " and it all got 
confused." While Mrs. Verall's automatic script of Mon- 
day, May 8th, 10-10.30 p. m., concludes as from the Myers 
control with the words : " Falsehood is never far away. 
What do you want with me. I cannot . . . No 
power, doing something else to-night. Note hour." The 
initial " H " with which the message is there reported as 
signed was a substitution for the real initial, because that 
purported to represent F. W. H. M. ; and in those early 
days of Mrs. Verrall's writing it was thought safer, and 
at any rate less sensational, to treat this as mere imper- 
sonation. 

The correspondence can be shown by a statement in par- 
allel columns, as follows: — (See also p. 311.) 

May 8, 1901 

Mrs. Thompson Mrs. Verrall 

Birmingham Cambridge 

9-10.30 p.m. 10-10.30 p. m. 

1. " I cannot." 1. " Non possum (I can- 

not)." 
" No power." 

2. " Some one is calling me 2. " Doing something else 

now." to-night." 

3. " Let me be at rest." 3. " Desine (leave off)." 

4. " False things may creep 4. " Falsehood is never far 

in." away." 

The utterances of Mrs. Thompson were not known to 
Mrs. Verrall when she wrote the script reported in her pa- 



3 o6 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

per, Proc, vol. xx. ; but the correspondence is mentioned in 
her paper on pages 207 et seq. 

Further Notes on the Thompson Myers Sittings 

The rather strikingly worded complaints and requests 

recorded above (pp. 300-301), as received through Mrs. 

Thompson — 

" They keep on calling me. I am wanted everywhere. 

. . • Do appeal to them not to break me up so. . . . 
How easy to promise and how difficult to fulfil. Make one 

appeal to them to let me be at rest for two or three 

weeks." 

also correspond with something to the same effect inde- 
pendently received through another lady, called Miss Raw- 
son, three months earlier ; and constitute what may be fairly 
considered a very simple kind of cross-correspondence. 
This message, received on Feb. 7th, 1901, purported to 
come from Edmund Gurney, who was represented as speak- 
ing through Miss Rawson as follows : — 

" I have come to warn you for my friend to implore you not 
to let them call him. He gets no rest day or night. 
At every sitting 'Call Myers! Bring Myers'; there's 
not a place in England where they don't ask for him; 
it disturbs him, it takes away his rest. For God's sake 
don't call him. It is all right for him to come of his own 
accord. . . . What we want for him now is to rise, 
and to forget the earthly things. He can't help any more. 
His life was given to it, and that must be the help. He 
was allowed just to say that he continued. That was his 
great desire, but it will help nobody that he should be 
called back, and made to hover near the earth. In fact 
it will only make him earthbound. 



THE MYERS CONTROL 307 

I am tempted to quote here, from page 213 of Proc, 
vol. xxi., a different though not altogether dissimilar extract 
from the script of Mrs. Holland in India which was written 
on January 5th and 6th, 1904, by the Myers H control: — 

" Oh if I could only get to them — could only leave you the 
proof positive that I remember — recall — know — con- 
tinue. ... I have thought of a simile which may 
help you to realise the ' bound to earth condition ' which 
persists with me. It is a matter very largely of voluntary 
choice — I am, as it were, actuated by the missionary 
spirit; and the great longing to speak to the souls in 
prison — still in the prison of the flesh — leads me to 
1 absent me from felicity awhile.' " 

This clearly expresses the idea of " service " which I 
wish to emphasize, and it is a reverberation and later expan- 
sion of the thought in the extracts already quoted, which had 
not been published and were not known to Mrs. Holland. 
But the long post-dating of this last communication destroys 
any claim to consideration as a cross-correspondence. Be- 
sides it was only an explanation of why the messages still 
willingly continued; whereas the other two — so soon after 
death — are full of earnestness and anxiety. 

General Remarks, Addressed to Religious 
Objectors 

Good and earnest though moderately intelligent religious 
people sometimes seek to pour scorn upon the reality of any 
of these apparent communications — not for any scientific 
reason, but for reasons born of prejudice. They think that 
it is not a worthy occupation for " just men made perfect " 
" who have entered into felicity " to be remembering trivial 
and minute details, under circumstances of exceptional difH- 



308 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

culty, for the purpose of proving to those left behind the fact 
of survival and the continuance of personal identity. It 
is taken for granted that saints ought to be otherwise occu- 
pied in their new and lofty and favoured conditions. 

What may or may not be possible to saints, it is hardly 
for me or other gropers among mere terrestrial facts to 
surmise ; nor am I anxious to imagine that all our communi- 
cators belong to the category of " perfected and glorified 
saints," — it seems to me, I confess, singularly unlikely; nor 
is it necessary to suppose that such exercises as we report — 
even if they are fully and entirely what they pretend to be — 
constitute any large proportion of the activity of the people 
who are professedly concerned in their production — people 
who are confessedly far from perfection and who have still 
much to learn. And as regard dignity and appropriateness, 
— does it not sometimes happen that an Archbishop or a 
Savant is found willing to play a frivolous childish game, 
and otherwise to disport himself, in spite of his being on the 
brink of eternity in a world of sorrow and sin? 

But seriously, is it not legitimate to ask these good people 
whether, if an opportunity of service to brethren arises, an 
effort to seize it may not be made even by a saint? Whether 
this notion of perennial service is not in accordance with their 
own doctrines and beliefs? and whether they are not im- 
pressed by that clause in the creed of most Christians which 
roundly asserts that their Master descended into Hades? 
for purposes which in another place are suggested. Whereby 
they may learn that, even after such a Life and Death as 
that, Felicity was not entered into save after an era of 
further personal service of an efficient kind. Those who 
interpret the parables in such a way as to imagine that dig- 
nified idleness is the occupation of eternity — that there will 
be nothing to do hereafter but idly to enjoy the beatific 



THE MYERS CONTROL 309 

contemplation and other rewards appropriate to a well-spent 
life or to well-held creeds, — free from remorse of every 
kind, and without any call for future work and self-sacrifice, 
— such people will probably some day find themselves mis- 
taken, and will realise that as yet they have formed a very 
inadequate conception of what is meant by that pregnant 
phrase " the Joy of the Lord." 

Further Comments 

Those who think that there is anything sensational or 
specially emotional in these communications are mistaken. 
The conversation is conducted on the same lines as a tele- 
phonic conversation : it is liable to the same sort of annoying 
interruptions, and likewise to the same occasional surprising 
gleams of vividness, — a happy turn of phrase, for instance, 
a tone of the voice, and other unmistakable and unexpected 
revelations of identity — forged or real — such as may be 
conveyed by an appropriate nickname or by some trivial 
reminiscence. When this happens, and when relatives are 
present, their emotions are certainly perturbed. 

These remarks are general, and are applicable to this 
whole group reported on by me: they are not limited in 
their application to any one particular series. 

I have not the slightest interest in attempting to coerce 
belief of any kind. The facts will make different kinds of 
appeal to different people, and to some they will not appeal 
at all. These will regard the whole business with contempt 
and pity. They are within their rights in doing so if they 
have conscientiously read this and the other records. As 
a rule, however, that is where they are apt to fail ; and when 
a person's knowledge of a subject is small, we may be 
pardoned for holding his opinion concerning it in light es- 
teem. 



310 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

Among the messages the most interesting to me are the 
concluding observations, part of which were carefully and 
laboriously reported by the "Nelly" control, — the words, 
repeated below, sounding odd in a childish voice. 

{Myers) " I could not say it, but they were translating like a 
schoolboy does his first lines of Virgil — so terribly con- 
fused and inaccurate. But somehow I could not help 
it. It was not me communicating, yet I saw it going 
on. ... I can only think the things, and false 
things may creep in without my knowing it." 

(Nelly) " He said it was not he, but neither was it fraud. He 
does not want you to stop the phenomenon, he wants 
to study it. You are not to say it was wrong and get 
it stopped. He likes to watch the somnambulistic thing 
at work. It is not he that is doing it, and yet he is 
looking on. He does not see how it is worked, but he 
finds this more interesting than the genuine communica- 
tions. He did not rattle the curtains either . . . 
but it was not cheating, and he does not want you to 
make them think that they are cheats. He does not 
know how it is worked, but he is studying and he 
thinks it will help a great deal if he can understand 
how the cheating things that are not cheats are done. 
• . • 

[And then came the laborious sentences] 
" He says he is finding out how honest non-phenomena 
are to be accounted for. Apparently dishonest phenom- 
ena are phenomena of extreme [interest] apart from 
the spirit which purports to be communicating." 

Whatever their origin, these words do, in my judgment, 
represent the truth about a good many of these phenomena 
— that is to say, that they are not precisely what their 
surface-aspect implies, yet neither are they fraud. They are 



THE MYERS CONTROL 311 

attempts at doing something rather beyond the power of 
the operators, — who arrive approximately at their aim 
without achieving what they want exactly. They are trying 
to get something definite through, let us say, and something 
like it comes. Occasionally they hardly know how it comes, 
it is a puzzle to them as to us, and often they don't know 
what it is that we have got ; but sometimes they, too, seem to 
be spectators, aware of the result, and to be worried by 
the misconception and misunderstanding which they see will 
arise, but which they are powerless to prevent, — except, as 
here, by trying to instruct us and to awaken our intelligences 
into a condition in which we, too, can understand and grapple 
with the unavoidable difficulties of the situation. 

" I can only think of the things;" seems to me likely to be 
an accurate description of the method. It is a telepathic 
method, and the reproduction by voice or pen is a supple- 
mentary and only barely controllable process. (Cf also 
pages, 256 and 313.) 

It was characteristic also of Myers to feel as if he were 
the note-taker, not the communicator, and that he ought to 
be putting it all down (p. 291). Another amusing episode 
was the persistence of Prof. Sidgwick's incredulity (p. 291), 
so that he was represented as asking to be convinced that 
he was himself communicating, and that the medium was 
not " getting it out of him somehow." 

The coincidence in time between the termination of this 
sitting at Birmingham and some writing obtained by Mrs. 
Verrall at Cambridge, as exhibited in the analytical state- 
ment above, on page 305), is very remarkable and worth 
careful notice — especially when the unexpected character 
of the Thompson sitting is taken into account. It really 
makes an effective cross-correspondence. 



312 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

These observations terminate this account of communi- 
cations received through the mediumship of Mrs. Thomp- 
son. An immense mass has been obtained through her in 
the past (see Reports in vols. xvii. and xviii. of Proceedings 
S. P. R.), but so far as I know, these two sittings are among 
the last which she has given. We owe our thanks for the 
time and opportunity which she has freely accorded to mem- 
bers of the Society for scientific purposes. 

In concluding this chapter, which I regard as an im- 
portant one, I claim that these utterances represent a gen- 
uine psychological phenomenon, and are therefore of interest 
to students of psychical matters, from any point of view. 
It is just possible that a hostile critic may here find part of 
the pabulum necessary for making every effort at studying 
matters of the kind appear ridiculous. Whether this por- 
tion, or the subsequent commonplace dialogue carried on 
through Mrs. Piper, or such few of the " unverifiable " 
communications as have been reported in our Proceedings 
(such for instance as that on p. 181 above), will appear the 
more humorous when regarded from the scoffer's point of 
view, I am unable to judge. Nor need the question deeply 
concern us. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE MYERS AND HODGSON CONTROLS IN 
RECENT PIPER SITTINGS 

AS to Myers and Hodgson controls through Mrs. 
Piper — like the Gurney control in the old days — 
I do not propose to report the communications I 
received. They were not so good as some of those re- 
ceived by others, partly because I did not give these controls 
much chance. Indeed " Rector " complains of this as fol- 
lows : — 

Myers has had very little opportunity or encouragement 
to prove his identity. 
O. J. L. Yes, that is fairly true so far. 

And now if the opportunity can be given him, no one 
on our side is more desirous of proving his identity 7 
than Myers. Understand? 
O. J. L. Yes, I quite understand. 

He understands, and wishes very much to communicate 
with a few of his real friends. R. It should be given 
him in any case, as he is intelligent, clear, and under- 
stands the necessity of so doing. 

In Mrs. Holland's script of 16th April, 1907, a descrip- 
tion is given by the Myers H control of one of the difficulties 
of communication. 

" I want you to understand me but I have so few chances 
to speak — it's like waiting to take a ticket and I am 
always pushed away from the pigeon-hole before I can 
influence her mind — No the scribe's " 

313 



314 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

Only one of the English sittings in 1907 was conducted 
on similar lines to those in the old days, — that is to say, 
as a voice sitting — a talking, not a writing, sitting : and 
it was less unlike those of the old Phinuit days than I had 
expected. 

In fact there was distinct recurrence of what in the old 
days used to be called " fishing," when Phinuit was groping 
in tentative fashion for a name and hoping for help from 
the sitter. 

But in truth I have long wanted to exonerate Phinuit 
from most of the blame in this matter. The " fishing " 
procedure had to be admitted, and indeed emphasised, like 
all other weak spots; and Phinuit had not been trained to 
eschew normal help and to take precautions against it, as 
Mrs. Thompson's " Nelly " had been trained; but I always 
felt that his haziness and tentative approach to things prob- 
ably represented a genuine difficulty, and was part of the 
phenomenon which needed study; so I am interested in 
reading in Dr. Hodgson's Report, p. 382, vol. xiii., the 
following judicial pronouncement: — 

" It was out of the automatic dreameries of persons in 
some such conditions as those which I have illustrated above, 
that Phinuit in my present view so often had to fish his facts; 
and I think that assent to correct statements, and other 
clues from the sitters — besides helping the ' communicator ' 
— were probably of great service to Phinuit, enabling him to 
1 cast his line ' for those mental automatisms that specially 
concerned the sitter. 

" Much light seems to me to have been thrown upon 
Phinuit's mistakes and obscurities and general method of 
trying to get at facts, in what were on the whole bad sit- 
tings, by comparison of the results obtained from the various 
communicators writing directly or using G. P. as amanuen- 
sis ; and I feel pretty sure that much of Phinuit's ' fishing ' 



MYERS AND HODGSON CONTROLS 315 

was due to the confusions of the more or less comatose com- 
municators, whose minds had let loose, so to speak, a crowd 
of earthly memories." 



Manner of the Stainton Moses Group 

It will be of interest to those familiar with the script 
of Stainton Moses to see the names of his old Controls 
cropping up. Not only Imperator and Rector, but " Pru- 
dens " also, who appears to act as an accomplished mes- 
senger. I conjecture, however, that whatever relationship 
may exist between these personages and the corresponding 
ones of Stainton Moses, there is little or no identity. For 
instance, a " Doctor " is represented as communicating or 
controlling, but he appears neither to have, nor to claim, any 
connexion with the non-medical " Doctor " of Stainton 
Moses; sometimes at any rate this Piper one is called " Dr. 
Oliver," and is probably intended to represent a deceased 
medical man of Boston. It is rather a puzzle to me why 
Mrs. Piper's personalities should have assumed the same 
set of names. In general characters they are similar; but 
I see no very close resemblance in detail. And hitherto 
the Piper " Imperator " has not given to us the same old 
earth-name as did the original " Imperator " to Stainton 
Moses. So it would appear as if they did not very seriously 
pretend to be identical. 

It is seldom, nowadays, that there is any marked change 
of control, such as occurred with Phinuit sometimes. The 
utterances appear to consist of first-person-reporting on the 
part of Rector, who speaks or writes after the fashion of a 
dignified and gentle old man. 

It may be noted that in America, with the advent of 
the Stainton Moses controls, the atmosphere of a sitting 



316 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

sometimes became rather markedly " religious." This can 
be illustrated by the following close of an American Voice- 
Sitting in 1906, reported to me by Mr. Dorr: — 

("Hodgson" terminating his communication) 

Well, I will be off. Good-bye for the present. 

(Rector resumes.) All right. That is first-rate. Took him 

a long time to turn round and get out. He dislikes to go 

more than anybody I ever saw. The last moment he kept 

talking to me and talking to me. He could not give it up. 

Prayer 

Father, in Thy kindness guide Thy children of earth, bestow 
Thy blessings on them, teach them with Thy presence and 
Thy power to receive suffering, pain, illness and sorrow, 
teach them to know that Thy presence is always with them. 
May Thy grace and everlasting love be and abide with them 
now and evermore. 

Farewell. We depart, friends, and may the blessings of God 
be bestowed on you. Farewell. 



Manner of the Hodgson Control 

The atmosphere of a sitting is always serious, but only 
occasionally is it solemn — usually it is of an even tenor, 
and sometimes it is hearty and jovial. The following is 
a characteristic Hodgson greeting extracted from a sitting 
with Mr. Dorr and Henry James, Jr., at Boston in 1906: — 

Ha! Well, I did not expect to see you so soon. 
Good morning, Harry! 
I am delighted to see you. 
H.J. Jr. Is that you, Mr. Hodgson? 

Yes, it is a great delight to me to see your face once more. 
How is everything with you, first rate? 



MYERS AND HODGSON CONTROLS 317 

H.J. Jr. Very well. 

Hello, George! 

Why, I feel as though I was one among you. Hello 
George ! 

G.B.D. Hello! 

You people don't appreciate my spirit of fun! But I am 
Hodgson, and I shall be Hodgson to the end of all 
eternity, and you cannot change me no matter what you 
do. 

H. J. Jr. I think we appreciate it, Mr. Hodgson. 

Well, I hope you do — if you don't, you have lost some- 
thing, because I am what I am, and I shall never be 
anything else, and of all the joyous moments of my 
whole existence, the most joyful is when I meet you 
all. 

This sort of thing is of course, not in the least evidential, 
and yet if I were asked to invent some scheme of salutation 
more natural and characteristic of Hodgson's personality 
I should not be able to improve upon it. 

To illustrate the manner of the Hodgson control in my 
own experience, the following brief extract must serve : — 

At the Eighth Sitting on 23 Nov. 1906 (present 0. J. L. 
alone), "Isaac Thompson" wrote a good deal, but 
the following came from Hodgson: — 

I am Hodgson, but I cannot take Rector's place to-day. 
However I will make a poor attempt to speak through 
him. 
O. J. L. Very glad to see you. 

Here's ditto. Do I understand that Mrs. Piper is in Eng- 
land? 
O. J. L. Yes, she is, and is staying in my house. 

Capital. If I were in the body it would not be so. 
However I am glad it is so. 



318 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

O. J. L. She is here, well and happy, with Alta and Minerva. 
Good, first rate. I am glad. 

Will you take a message to Billie Newbold for me, safe? 
O. J. L. Yes, I will send it through William James. 
Do you wish me to take a message for you? 
Ask slowly; remember we cannot hear as well as you can. 
I am so glad to be on this side. 
O. J. L. Well, Hodgson, I do want to ask you something. You 
know when I am talking to you I am talking to the 
hand; but I want to know whether it is through the 
hand you hear. Suppose I stopped up your medium's 
ears with cotton wool, would it make any difference? 
Would the message still come? 
I think it would, try it. 
O. J. L. Very well, I will another time. 
First rate, I permit it; first rate. 

But after all I did not try the experiment; for it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to secure complete deafness by plugging 
the ears — even with putty. Moreover the necessary ma- 
nipulation of the medium's head during trance seemed rather 
repellent. It is an experiment worth trying, however, if 
we could be sure of a clear result. If I could have been sure 
of a crucial test I would have had it done; but hyperes- 
thesia would have to be allowed for in the positive direction 
— possibly also inhibitory suggestion in the negative, — and 
on the whole I felt that no definite deduction could be made, 
whatever the result. Nevertheless, the experiment ought to 
be made by some competent person. 

Manner of the Impersonation Generally 

As illustrating the dramatic activity of the hand in an 
extreme case — though it is always very marked, for the 
hand is full of " personality " — I quote the following con- 



MYERS AND HODGSON CONTROLS 319 

temporaneous note made by Mrs. Sidgwick during a sitting 
in which the Myers P control, at length after much effort, 
had just succeeded in giving Abt Vogler as the name of a 
poem he was referring to. 

" The hand is tremendously pleased and excited and 
thumps and gesticulates. The impression given is like that 
of a person dancing round the room in delight at having 
accomplished something." 

But indeed the writing which immediately followed this 
success is worth quoting. The record runs thus :— 

"(Rector communicating) 
He pronounced it for me again and again just as you did, 
and he said Rector get her to pronounce it for you and 
you will understand, he whispered it in my ear. 
E. M. S. Just as you were coming out ? 
Just as I left the light. 
Voglor, yes. 
E.M.S. Good. 

(Myers communicating) 
Now dear Mrs. Sidgwick in future have no doubt or fear 
of so-called death as there is none as there is certainly 
intelligent life beyond it." 

With regard to the misspelling which occurs here and 
elsewhere, the difficulty is readily imaginable, but it is thus 
expressed by Rector, later, when he is repeating the name of 
a poem. The record runs thus : — 

" Abt ABT. Volg. 

(Hand expresses dissatisfaction with this.) 

Vogler. 

(Rector communicating) 
You see I do not always catch the letters as he repeats 
them. R. 



320 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

E. M. S. No, I see. 

Therefore when I am registering I am apt to misspell. 
E. M. S. I see. 

But if you ask me to correct it of course I can. R." 

With regard to " fishing " and making use of indications 
given by the sitter, it seems likely that with the most trans- 
parent honesty this would be likely to happen; because Rec- 
tor, or any other scribe, is evidently in the position of re- 
ceiving ideas by a sort of dictation, and need not always 
be able clearly to discriminate their source, whether from the 
ultra-material or from the material side. For instance, the 
Myersp control attempted to speak about the Odes of 
Horace, and did so, but Rector, after writing " Odes " 
without difficulty, appeared doubtful about the word, and 
wrote " Odessus " " Odesesis " etc., and finally half ac- 
cepted Mrs. Sidgwick's suggestion " Odyssey " ; — a good 
instance of how ready Rector is to accept a misleading sug- 
gestion, even when what he has independently written is 
right; and also of discontinuity of consciousness between 
Rector and the real communicator, who in this case was 
obviously trying to talk about the Odes of Horace in order 
to connect them with the quotations from Abt Vogler just 
previously made. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

BRIEF SUMMARY OF OTHER EXPERIENCES 
AND COMMENT THEREUPON 

SOME rather striking sittings were held by a lady 
named Mrs. Grove, whose deceased friends, a Mr. 
Marble and some others, sent many appropriate mes- 
sages, which were in many respects akin to those which had 
been received by the same sitter through other mediums. 

Her friends were perfectly obscure people, totally un- 
known to Mrs. Piper, and unknown in any district in which 
Mrs. Piper had been; hence these utterances have an im- 
portance of their own, more akin to that of the time when 
Phinuit showed himself able to deal with the concerns of 
miscellaneous strangers. They are reported in the Proceed- 
ings of the Society of Psychical Research, (part lviii) but 
I do not repeat them here, though I repeat an experiment 
made in connexion with them: — 

Experiment on the Recognition of a Photograph 
of one of the controls 

The waking stages of the last sitting of the first Edgbas- 
ton series, in December 1906, and of the first of the second 
series, in May 1907, — with an interval between them of 
five months, — are worth recording because of an experi- 
ment I made in connexion with the likeness of a person sup- 
posed to have been communicating during the trance (in 
this case Mr. Marble) : the point being to see whether there 

321 



322 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

would be any recognition of a photograph by the automatist 
before her state had become entirely normal, — that is dur- 
ing the sort of period in which it is customarily possible 
dimly to remember dreams. (See p. 279.) This stage is 
referred to by Dr. Hodgson on page 401 of vol. xiii. — 
where he calls it Mrs. Piper's subliminal stage, and says that 
it is a condition in which she frequently has visions of the 
distant or departing " communicators." 

On the first occasion I waited rather a long time before 
trying the experiment, — something more than an hour, — 
and the recognition was uncertain; but faint as it was, it 
seemed to be a residual effect of the trance; since it was 
not permanent, and by next day had entirely disappeared. 

On the second occasion I tried directly after the waking 
stage was complete ; and then the recognition was immediate 
and certain. But in a few minutes it had become vague and 
dim, and before the end of the day it had again completely 
ceased. 

Sequel to Sitting No. 13, which had lasted from 11. 10 to 
1.10 on 3 d December , 1906 

After lunch I took eleven photographs of men, and asked Mrs. 
Piper if she had ever seen any of them. She looked over them, 
hesitating on the one representing Mr. Joseph Marble for some time, 
and then picked that out and said she had seen that man somewhere, 
but she could not remember where. Nothing was said by me during 
the process, of course. 

Next day, in the evening, I tested Mrs. Piper again with another 
set of photographs of men, partly the same and partly different, 
but containing among others the critical one. This time, however, 
it was looked at without comment and without interest, and no 
remembrance of the appearance seemed to persist. She remembered 
the fact of having recognised one before; but when asked to do it 
again, she picked out, after much hesitation, a different one as a 



OTHER EXPERIENCES 323 

possibility, and said that she thought it had been found in America 
that the memory evaporated in time, and that it was strongest within 
an hour of the sitting. The test made the day before had been 
made about an hour and a half after the sitting at which * Mr. 
Marble ' had been one of the communicators. 



Sequel to Waking Stage of No. 14, on igth May, 1907 

(A number of men's photographs were placed in a row 
before her as soon as she had come to : she immediately 
pounced on one without the slightest hesitation.) 
That is the man I saw. I saw him. That is the man I saw. 
I saw him up there: such a nice face. I could see him. 
I could see Mr. Hodgson pushing him up to the front. 
[The selection was correct; the photograph was one of the 
person she calls Joe, L e. of the late Mr. Joseph 
Marble.] 
(An hour or so later. I again put the photographs in 
front of her. She looked at them as if for the first 
time, and said) 
I do not know the photographs. 

(She then hesitated long over the right one, saying she had 
" seen him somewhere," but finished up by saying) 
No, I do not know. 

Comment 

The result of this experiment, with other experiences re- 
lating to the description of the personal appearance of a 
person spoken of in a trance, has satisfied me that — what- 
ever may be the cause — a visual likeness of the people 
supposed to be communicating in the trance is sometimes 
really impressed at the time upon the sub-conscious mind of 
Mrs. Piper. A veridical dream impression seems to be 
caused in these cases; but like other dream impressions it 



324 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

fades. The visual expression is merely an extension of the 
impression of character and of speech, which is also im- 
pressed upon the same stratum of her subconsciousness, and 
is of a similarly evanescent character. 

During trance undoubtedly her subconsciousness is thus, 
at least occasionally, in touch with a simulacrum or hallu- 
cinatory representation of a deceased person, — whatever be 
the cause — a telepathic impression received from the sitter 
perhaps, or, as appears more likely, from the surviving in- 
fluence of the deceased person. 

That much is certain ; and to deny that, is merely to refuse 
to be informed by facts of experience. But of what nature 
this evanescent but for a time vivid impression of appear- 
ance and character and personality really is, is a more diffi- 
cult question, on which at present I do not feel competent to 
express an opinion. For what it is worth, however, my 
instinct leads me to judge that it is not solely due to a 
telepathic impulse from the sitter — in spite of the fact that 
the sympathy and understanding of the sitter is a great help, 
and indeed a determining cause why one set of impressions 
is produced and not a totally different set. Undoubtedly 
the existence of real interest and affection on the part of a 
person present is an awakening cause of a particular veridical 
impression. It is that which determines the selection, out 
of the infinite multitude of other impressions which otherwise 
might equally well be produced. But although sympathy 
of this kind is the selective and determining cause, I do not 
feel that it is the creative or constructive cause. It appears 
to me that there is an agency or energy lying ready which 
is capable of arousing in the subconsciousness of an entranced 
person, or of persons endowed with automatic faculty, a vast 
multitude of impressions — good, bad and indifferent; and 



OTHER EXPERIENCES 325 

that out of this multitude of possible impressions some are 
selected with more or less discrimination as appropriate to 
a particular case, — the presence of a sitter being the detent 
or trigger which liberates or guides the energy in one direc- 
tion and not in another. 

On the whole, these experiences, with many others which 
are omitted, tend to render certain the existence of some out- 
side intelligence or control, distinct from the consciousness, 
and as far as I can judge from the subconsciousness also, of 
Mrs. Piper or other medium. And they tend to render 
probable the working hypothesis, on which I choose to pro- 
ceed, that that version of the nature of the intelligences which 
they themselves present and favour is something like the 
truth. In other words I feel that we are in secondary or 
tertiary touch — at least occasionally — with some stratum 
of the surviving personality of the individuals who are rep- 
resented as sending messages. 

I call the touch secondary, because it is always through 
the medium and not direct; and I call it generally tertiary, 
because it represents itself as nearly always operating through 
an agency or medium on that side also — an agency which 
calls itself " Rector " or " Phinuit." That these latter im- 
personations are really themselves individuals, I do not ven- 
ture either to assert or deny; but it is difficult or impossible 
to bring them to book, and an examination of their nature 
may be deferred: it is the impersonation of verifiable or 
terrestrially known individuals to which it behoves us in the 
first instance to pay attention. 

From this point of view the sittings in the Mrs. Grove 
case — at some of which I was present — must be regarded 
as among the most strictly evidential of all; for a decided 
unity of character and of message is preserved, no matter 



326 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

through what medium the communication comes. Similar 
messages had come when Mrs. Grove had sat with Mrs. 
Thompson and other mediums. 

Deductions 

A careful analysis and examination of the facts, both for 
and against the genuine activity of deceased Communicators, 
has been made by Dr. Hodgson, and will be found in his 
Report in Proceedings, vol. xiii., pages 357-412. (Ex- 
tracts are quoted above in Chapter XVIII.) He is led dis- 
tinctly to countenance, and indeed to champion, a cautious 
and discriminating form of spiritistic theory, — not as a 
working hypothesis only, but as truly representing part of 
the facts. His experience was so large, and his critical fac- 
ulty so awake, that such a conclusion of his is entitled to the 
gravest consideration. If I had to pronounce a prematurely 
decided opinion, my own view would agree with his. 

The old series of sittings with Mrs. Piper convinced me 
of survival, for reasons which I should find it hard to formu- 
late in any strict fashion, but that was their distinct effect. 
They also made me suspect — or more than suspect — that 
surviving intelligences were in some cases consciously com- 
municating, — yes, in some few cases consciously; though 
more usually the messages came in all probability from an 
unconscious stratum, being received by the medium in an 
inspirational manner analogous to psychometry. 

The hypothesis of surviving intelligence and personality, 
— not only surviving but anxious and able with difficulty to 
communicate, — is the simplest and most straightforward, 
and the only one that fits all the facts. But the process of 
communication is sophisticated by many influences, so that 



OTHER EXPERIENCES 327 

it is very difficult, perhaps at present impossible, to disen- 
tangle and exhibit clearly the part that each plays. 

One thing that conspicuously suggests itself is that we are 
here made aware, through these trivial but illuminating facts, 
of a process which by religious people has always been recog- 
nised and insisted on, viz., the direct interaction of incarnate 
with disincarnate mind, — that is to say, an intercourse be- 
tween mind and mind in more than one grade of existence, 
by means apart from, and independent of, the temporary 
mechanism of the body. 

The facts indeed open the way to a perception of the 
influence of spirit generally, as a guiding force in human and 
terrestrial affairs, — active not under the exceptional circum- 
stances of trance alone, but always and constantly and nor- 
mally, — so uniformly active in fact that by ordinary people 
the agency is undetected and unperceived. Most people are 
far too busy to attend: they are too thoroughly occupied 
with what for the time are certainly extremely important 
affairs. A race of inspired people would be hopelessly un- 
practical, — though Society is usually grateful for the exist- 
ence and utterance of a few individuals of this type. 

The fact that these communications are obtained through 
subconscious agency is sometimes held to militate against 
their importance as a subject of study. But have not men 
of genius sometimes testified that brilliant ideas do surge 
up into their consciousness from some submerged stratum, 
at a time when they are incompletely awake to the things of 
this world? And ordinary people are aware that a brown 
study favours the conscious reception of something presum- 
ably akin to inspiration, by relegating ordinary experience 
to the background, and thereby enabling new and unfamiliar 
ideas to enter or germinate in the mind. 



328 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

A trance, or any state of complete unconsciousness, renders 
the normal though obscure activity of an unfamiliar psy- 
chical region still more manifest. Not indeed to the patient 

— who is unaware of the whole phenomenon, or remembers 
it only after the indistinct and temporary fashion of a dream 

— but to an observer or experimenter, who is allowed to 
enlarge his experience and to receive impressions by deputy; 
thereby attaining, at second hand, some of the privileges of 
intuition or clairvoyance, or even of genius, while he him- 
self remains in an ordinary and business-like condition. His 
experience in fact may be regarded as an undeserved, and 
therefore only moderately valuable, kind of vicarious inspi- 
ration. 



CHAPTER XXT 

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF CROSS- 
CORRESPONDENCE 

THE subject of cross-correspondence is so large and 
complicated that any one who wishes to form an 
opinion on it is bound to study the detailed publi- 
cations by Mr. Piddington, Mrs. Verrall, Miss Johnson, 
and others, in recent volumes of the Proceedings of the So- 
ciety for Psychical Research. It would be impossible other- 
wise to give the critical and substantial study which the elab- 
orate literary references demand. Whatever else they are, 
they are eminently communications from a man of letters, to 
be interpreted by scholars, and they are full of obscure clas- 
sical allusions. And parenthetically I may here state, as a 
noteworthy fact, that nowadays even through Mrs. Piper 
such scholarly allusions are obtained, — not obvious and ele- 
mentary ones, but such as exhibit a range of reading far 
beyond that of ordinary people — beyond my own for in- 
stance — and beyond that of anyone present at the time. 
The facts on which this statement is based have not yet 
(October, 1909) been published. 

Returning to the general subject of cross-correspondence, 
— the main feature of this kind of communication is that wc 
are required to study, not the phenomena exhibited by a 
single medium actuated by a number of ostensible controls, 
as heretofore, but conversely the utterance of one ostensible 
control effected through the contributory agency of several 
different mediums ; — who write automatically quite independ- 

329 



330 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

cntly of each other, who are at a distance from each other, 
who are sometimes unknown to each other, and who at first 
were unaware that any kind of correspondence was going on. 

In many cases, moreover, the messages as separately ob- 
tained were quite unintelligible, and only exhibited a meaning 
when they were subsequently put together by another person. 
So that the content of the message was in no living mind 
until the correspondences were detected by laborious crit- 
icism a year or two later; then at last the several parts were 
unified and the whole message and intention made out. 

The object of this ingenious and complicated effort clearly 
is to prove that there is some definite intelligence underlying 
the phenomena, distinct from that of any of the automatists, 
— by sending fragments of a message or literary reference 
which shall be unintelligible to each separately, — so that no 
effective mutual telepathy is possible between them — thus 
eliminating or trying to eliminate what had long been recog- 
nised by all members of the Society for Psychical Research 
as the most troublesome and indestructible of the semi-nor- 
mal hypotheses. And the further object is evidently to 
prove as far as possible, by the substance and quality of the 
message, that it is characteristic of the one particular person- 
ality who is ostensibly communicating, and of no other. 

That has clearly been the aim of the communicators them- 
selves. Whether or not they have been successful is a ques- 
tion which it may take some time and study finally and 
conclusively to decide. 

If a student is to form a first hand judgment of any value 
on this subject, he must, as I have said, read in full the elab- 
orate papers of Mr. Piddington and Miss Johnson and Mrs. 
Verrall in the important recent volumes of the Proceedings 
of the Society; which is no light task. 



CROSS CORRESPONDENCE 331 

Discovery of Cross-correspondences 

But as giving the best introductory and purely initial 
account of this large and evidently growing subject, I will 
quote from the paper of our Research Officer, Miss John- 
son, her Chapter VII. called " The Theory of Cross-cor- 
respondences," since it was through her patient care and 
perspicacity that the existence of such things, on the way to 
something like their present striking form, was first demon- 
strated. 

It opens with a quotation from the writings of F. W. H. 
Myers which illustrates his attitude to the subject when 
living : — ■ 

" It is not we who are in reality the discoverers here. The ex- 
periments which are being made are not the work of earthly skill. 
All that we can contribute to the new result is an attitude of pa- 
tience, attention, care ; an honest readiness to receive and weigh 
whatever may be given into our keeping by intelligences beyond our 
own. Experiments, I say, there are; probably experiments of a 
complexity and difficulty which surpass our imagination; but they 
are made from the other side of the gulf, by the efforts of spirits 
who discern pathways and possibilities which for us are impenetrably 
dark." — {Human Personality, vol. ii., p. 275). 

And then it continues : — 

In Human Personality Mr. Myers hints more than once 
at a favourite theory of his that the influence of science on 
modern thought is not confined to this life alone, but may 
be carried on into the next, and so tend to improve the evi- 
dence for communication from the dead. The latter, he sug- 
gests, are coming to understand more and more clearly what 
constitutes really good evidence, and may gradually discover 
better means of producing it. [In the above passage he for- 



332 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

mulates this conjecture most clearly, and] it would seem 
from our recent investigations that some such experiments as 
he there foreshadowed may actually be taking place. 

Mr. Myers and Dr. Hodgson made attempts at different 
times to obtain connections between the utterances — either 
spoken or written — of different automatists. It is by no 
means easy even to obtain suitable conditions for trying such 
experiments, and unfortunately, as far as I am aware, no 
complete record of these attempts seems to exist. Some ref- 
ences to them, however, occur in a number of letters written 
by Mr. Myers to Mrs. Thompson; for instance on October 
24th, 1898, he wrote as follows: 

" Dr. Hodgson is staying on in America for the winter, 
sitting with Mrs. Piper. It would be grand if we could get 
communication between the ' controls ' on each side." 

Some interesting connexions between the automatisms of 
Mrs. Thompson and those of other sensitives were already 
recorded in Mr. Piddington's paper " On the Types of Phe- 
nomena displayed in Mrs. Thompson's Trance " in Proceed- 
ings, S. P. R., vol. xviii., pp. 104-307. 

But the most notable development of cross correspondence, 
and the first appearance of a really complicated and remark- 
ably evidential type of them, have taken place since Mr. 
Myers's death. 

This was shown first in Mrs. VerralPs script, and a con- 
siderable section of her Report on it (Proc., vol. xx., pp. 205- 
275) is devoted to an account of the cross-correspondences 
between her script and the script or automatic speech of 
other automatists. 

In studying these in proof in the early part of 1906, — 
says Miss Johnson, our Research Officer — I was struck by 
the fact that in some of the most remarkable instances the 
statements in the script of one writer were by no means a 
simple reproduction of statements in the script of the other, 
but seemed to represent different aspects of the same idea, 



CROSS CORRESPONDENCE 333 

one supplementing or completing the other. Thus, in one 
case (p. 223), Mrs. Forbes's script, purporting to come from 
her son Talbot, stated that he must now leave her, since he 
was looking for a sensitive who wrote automatically, in order 
that he might obtain corroboration of her own writing. 
Mrs. Verrall, on the same day, wrote of a fir-tree planted in 
a garden, and the script was signed with a sword and sus- 
pended bugle. The latter was part of the badge of the regi- 
ment to which Talbot Forbes had belonged, and Mrs. Forbes 
had in her garden some fir-trees, grown from seed sent to her 
by her son. These facts were unknown to Mrs. Verrall. 

In another case (pp. 241-245) — too complicated to sum- 
marise here — Mrs. Forbes produced, on November 26th 
and 27th, 1902, references, absolutely meaningless to herself, 
to a passage in the Symposium which Mrs. Verrall had been 
reading on these days. These references also applied ap- 
propriately to an obscure sentence in Mrs. Verrall's own 
script of November 26th; and on December 18th, attempts 
were made in Mrs. Forbes's script to give a certain test 
word, " Dion " or " Dy," which, it was stated, " will be 
found in Myers' own. . . ." Mrs. Verrall interpreted 
the test word at the time, for reasons given, as " Diotima," 
and a description of the same part of the Symposium, in- 
cluding the mention of Diotima, did occur in Human Per- 
sonality, which was published about three months later, in 
February, 1903. Further references to the Symposium ap- 
peared in Mrs. Forbes's script in the early part of 1903 (see 
Mrs. Verrall's Report, p. 246) . 

In another case (pp. 269-271) , October 16th, 1904, Mrs. 
Verrall's script gave details, afterwards verified, of what 
Mrs. Forbes was doing; and immediately afterwards Mrs. 
Verrall had a mental impression of Mrs. Forbes sitting in 
her drawing-room, with the figure of her son standing look- 
ing at her. Mrs. Forbes's script of the same day, purport- 
ing to come from her son, stated that he was present and 
wished she could see him, and that a test was being given for 
her at Cambridge. 

I became convinced through the study of these cases that 
there was some special purpose in the particular form they 



334 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

took, — all the more because in Mrs. Verrall's script state- 
ments were often associated with them, apparently to draw 
attention to some peculiar kind of test, — described, e.g. as 
superposing certain things on others, when all would be 
clear. 

The characteristic of these cases — or at least of some of 
them — is that we do not get in the writing of one auto- 
matist anything like a mechanical verbatim reproduction of 
phrases in the other; we do not even get the same idea ex- 
pressed in different ways, — as might well result from di- 
rect telepathy between them. What we get is a fragmentary 
utterance in one script, which seems to have no particular 
point or meaning, and another fragmentary utterance in the 
other, of an equally pointless character; but when we put the 
two together, we see that they supplement one another, and 
that there is apparently one coherent idea underlying both, 
but only partially expressed in each. 

It occurred to me, then, that by this method, if by any, 
it might be possible to obtain evidence more conclusive than 
any obtained hitherto of the action of a third intelligence, 
external to the minds of both automatists. If we simply 
find the same idea expressed — even though in different 
forms — by both of them, it may, as I have just said, most 
easily be explained by telepathy between them; but it is much 
more difficult to suppose that the telepathic perception of one 
fragment could lead to the production of another fragment 
which can only, after careful comparison, be seen to be re- 
lated to the first. 

The weakness of all well-authenticated cases of apparent 
telepathy from the dead is, of course, that they can gen- 
erally be explained by telepathy from the living. If the 
knowledge displayed by the medium is possessed by any 
person certainly existing, — that is, any living person,— we 
must refer it to that source rather than to a person whose 
existence is uncertain, — that is, a dead person. To do 
otherwise would be to beg the whole question at issue, for 
the very thing to be proved is the existence of the dead per- 
son. 

Hitherto the evidence for survival has depended on state- 



CROSS CORRESPONDENCE 335 

ments that seem to show the control's recollection of inci- 
dents in his past life. It would be useless for him to com- 
municate telepathically anything about his present life, be- 
cause there could be no proof of the truth of the communica- 
tion. This is the fundamental difference between the types 
of evidence for telepathy from the living and for telepathy 
from the dead. 

Now, telepathy relating to the present, such as we some- 
times get between living persons, must be stronger eviden- 
tially than telepathy relating to the past, because it is much 
easier to exclude normal knowledge of events in the present 
than of events in the past. But it has been supposed impossi- 
ble that we could ever get this kind of evidence for telepathy 
from the dead; since events in the present are either known 
to some living person — in which case we could not exclude 
his telepathic agency, — or they are unknown to any living 
person, in which case it would be difficult or impossible to 
prove that they had occurred. 

In these cross-correspondences, however, we find appa- 
rently telepathy relating to the present, — that is, the corre- 
sponding statements are approximately contemporaneous, — 
and to events in the present which, to all intents and pur- 
poses, are unknown to any living person; since the mean- 
ing and point of her script is often uncomprehended by each 
automatist until the solution is found through putting the 
two scripts together. At the same time we have proof of 
what has occurred [i.e. some special indication that a cor- 
respondence is being attempted] in the scripts themselves. 
Thus it appears that this method is directed towards satisfy- 
ing our evidential requirements. 

Now, granted the possibility of communication, it may be 
supposed that within the last few years a certain group of 
persons have been trying to communicate with us, who are 
sufficiently well instructed to know all the objections that 
reasonable sceptics have urged against the previous evidence, 
and sufficiently intelligent to realise to the full all the force 
of these objections. It may be supposed that these persons 
have invented a new plan, — the plan of cross-corespond- 
ences, — to meet the sceptics' objections. There is no doubt 



226 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

that the cross-correspondences are a characteristic element 
in the scripts that we have been collecting in the last few 
years, — the scripts of Mrs. Verrall, Mrs. Forbes, Mrs. Hol- 
land, and, still more recently, Mrs. Piper. And the import- 
ant point is that the element is a new one. We have reason 
to believe, as I have shown above, that the idea of making a 
statement in one script complementary of a statement in an- 
other had not occurred to Mr. Myers in his lifetime, — for 
there is no reference to it in any of his written utterances on 
the subject that I have been able to discover. Neither did 
those who have been investigating automatic script since his 
death invent this plan, if plan it be. It was not the auto- 
matists themselves that detected it, but a student of their 
scripts; it has every appearance of being an element im- 
ported from outside ; it suggests an independent invention, an 
active intelligence constantly at work in the present, not a 
mere echo or remnant of individualities of the past. 

Yes, it suggests an independent invention — an active 
intelligence constantly at work in the present, not a mere echo 
or remnant of individualities of the past. 

And so the matter has gone on developing, and a still 
further and more elaborate system of evidently experimental 
and designed cross-correspondence has now been discovered 
by Mr. Piddington in scripts of the automatists mentioned, 
when independently compared together; with veiled state- 
ments in those same scripts which symbolically but definitely 
claim that such correspondences are to be found if looked 
for. Those so far discovered are reported in the Society's 
Proceedings — a series of documents upon a consideration 
of which I do not propose to enter, since at this stage they 
are not capable of effective abridgement. 

Summary 

Summarising once more our position as regards cross-cor- 
respondence — we have in the course of the last few years 



CROSS CORRESPONDENCE 337 

been driven to recognise that the controls are pertinaciously 
trying to communicate now one now another definite idea 
by means of two or more different automatists, whom at the 
same time they are trying to prevent from communicating 
telepathically or unconsciously with one another; and that 
in order to achieve this deliberate aim the controls express 
the factors of the idea in so veiled a form that each writer 
indites her own share without understanding it. Yet some 
identifying symbol or phrase is often included in each script, 
so as to indicate to a critical examiner that the correspondence 
is intended and not accidental ; and, moreover, the idea thus 
co-operatively expressed is so definite that, when once the 
clue is found, no room is left for doubt as to the proper inter- 
pretation. 

That is precisely what we have quite recently again and 
again obtained. We are told by the communicators that 
there are other correspondences not yet detected by us ; and 
by more careful collation of the documents this has already 
been found true. The evidence needs careful and critical 
study; it is not in itself sensational, but it affords strong evi- 
dence of the intervention of a mind behind and independent 
of the automatist. 

If this be so — says the present President of the Society 
for Psychical Research, Mrs. Sidgwick — the question what 
mind this is becomes of extreme interest and importance. 
Can it be a mind still in the body? or have we got into rela- 
tion with minds which have survived bodily death and are 
endeavouring by means of the cross-correspondences to pro- 
duce evidence of their operation? If this last hypothesis 
be the true one, it would mean that intelligent co-operation 
between other than embodied human minds and our own, in 
experiments of a new kind intended to prove continued ex- 
istence, has become possible; and we should be justified in 



338 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

feeling that we are entering on a new and very important 
stage of the Society's work. 

Consider for a moment the purport and full bearing of a 
judgment which, though still in form hypothetical, I hold 
for my own part to be fully justified: — Intelligent co-opera- 
tion between other than embodied human minds than our own 
. . . has become possible. 

It is surely difficult to over-estimate the importance of so 
momentous an induction when it can finally be made. 

Man's practical outlook upon the universe is entering 
upon a new phase. Simultaneously with the beginning of 
a revolutionary increase in his powers of physical locomotion 
— which will soon be extended into a third dimension and no 
longer limited to a solid or liquid surface — his power of 
reciprocal mental intercourse also is in process of being en- 
larged; for there are signs that it will some day be no longer 
limited to contemporary denizens of earth, but will permit a 
utilisation of knowledge and powers superior to his own, 
even to the extent of ultimately attaining trustworthy infor- 
mation concerning other conditions of existence. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

TENTATIVE CONCLUSION 

IF we now try to summarise once more the position at 
which we have so far arrived — which I have endeav- 
oured to express in the concluding paragraph of the 
preceding chapter — we shall represent it somewhat as fol- 
lows : — 

The evidence for the survival of man, that is for the 
persistence of human intelligence and individual personality 
beyond bodily death, has always been cumulative ; and now, 
through recent developments of the ancient phenomenon of 
automatic writing, it is beginning to be crucial. 

The fame of Mrs. Piper has spread into all lands, and I 
should think the fame of Mrs. Verrall also. In these recent 
cases of automatism the Society has been singularly fortu- 
nate, for in the one we have a Medium who has been under 
strict supervision and competent management for the greater 
part of her psychical life; and in the other we have one of 
the sanest and acutest of our own investigators fortunately 
endowed with some power herself, — some power of acting 
as translator or interpreter between the psychical and the 
physical worlds. There are also other ladies to some ex- 
tent concerned in the recent unsensational but most intelligent 
phenomena, — especially the one known as Mrs. Holland, — 
who are likewise above any suspicion of duplicity. But, 
indeed, the whole thing has been so conducted that no du- 
plicity, either conscious or unconscious, can rationally be sus- 
pected: everything has been deposited at the time with 

339 



340 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

responsible persons outside the sphere of influence, and we 
are at liberty to learn what we can from the record of the 
phenomena, unperturbed by any moral suspicions. 

And what do we find? 

We find deceased friends — some of them well known to 
us and active members of the Society while alive — espe- 
cially Gurney, Hodgson, and Myers — constantly purporting 
to communicate, with the express purpose of patiently prov- 
ing their identity and giving us cross-correspondences between 
different mediums. We also find them answering specific 
questions in a manner characteristic of their known personali- 
ties and giving evidence of knowledge appropriate to them. 

Not easily or early do we make this admission. In spite 
of long conversations with what purported to be the sur- 
viving intelligence of these friends and investigators, we were 
by no means convinced of their identity by mere general con- 
versation, — even when of a friendly and intimate character, 
such as in normal cases would be considered amply and over- 
whelmingly sufficient for the identification of friends speak- 
ing, let us say, through a telephone or a typewriter. We 
required definite and crucial proof — a proof difficult even 
to imagine as well as difficult to supply. 

The ostensible communicators realise the need of such 
proof just as fully as we do, and have done their best to 
satisfy the rational demand. Some of us think they have 
succeeded, others are still doubtful. 

The following is Mrs. Verrall's conclusion after years of 
first-hand experience and careful testing: — 

It cannot be denied that the " communicator " of the 
Piper sittings and of my own script presents a consistent 
personality dramatically resembling that of the person whom 
he claims to be. 

I entirely acquiesce in this judgment. In fact, I am of 



TENTATIVE CONCLUSION 341 

those who, though they would like to see further and still 
stronger and more continued proofs, are of opinion that a 
good case has been made out, and that as the best working 
hypothesis at the present time it is legitimate to grant that 
lucid moments of intercourse with deceased persons may in 
the best cases supervene; — amid a mass of supplementary 
material, quite natural under the circumstances, but mostly 
of a presumably subliminal and less evidential kind. 

The boundary between the two states — the known and 
the unknown — is still substantial, but it is wearing thin in 
places ; and like excavators engaged in boring a tunnel from 
opposite ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we 
are beginning to hear now and again the strokes of the pick- 
axes of our comrades on the other side. 

So we presently come back out of our tunnel into the light 
of day and relate our experience to a busy and incredulous, 
or in some cases too easily credulous, world. We expect 
to be received with incredulity; though doubtless we shall be 
told in some quarters that it is all stale news, that there has 
been access to the other side of the mountain range from 
time immemorial, and that our laboriously constructed tun- 
nel was quite unnecessary. Agile climbers may have been 
to the top and peeped over. Flying messages from the other 
side may have arrived; pioneers must have surveyed the 
route. But we, like the navvies, are unprovided with wings, 
we dig and work on the common earth, our business is to 
pierce the mountain at some moderate elevation, and con- 
struct a permanent road or railway for the service of hu- 
manity. 

What we have to announce, then, is no striking novelty, 
no new mode of communication, but only the reception, by 
old but developing methods, of carefully constructed evidence 
of identity more exact and more nearly complete than per- 



342 AUTOMATISM AND LUCIDITY 

haps ever before. Carefully constructed evidence, I say. 
The constructive ingenuity exists quite as much on the other 
side of the partition as on our side: there has been distinct 
co-operation between those on the material and those on the 
immaterial side; and we are at liberty, not indeed to an- 
nounce any definite conclusion, but to adopt as a working 
hypothesis the ancient doctrine of a possible intercourse of 
intelligence between the material and some other, perhaps 
ethereal, order of existence. 

Some people have expected or hoped to communicate with 
Mars; it appears likely that recognised communication may 
some day occur with less removed, and indeed less hypo- 
thetical, dwellers in (or perhaps not in) the realm of space. 

But let us not jump to the conclusion that the idea of 
space no longer means anything to persons removed from the 
planet. They are no longer in touch with matter truly, and 
therefore can no longer appeal to our organs of sense, as 
they did when they had bodies for that express purpose ; but, 
for all we know, they may exist in the ether and be as aware 
of space and of the truths of geometry, though not of geog- 
raphy, as we are. Let us not jump to the conclusion that 
their condition and surroundings are altogether and utterly 
different. That is one of the things we may gradually find 
out not to be true. 

Meanwhile is there anything that provisionally and ten- 
tatively we can say that is earnestly taught to those who are 
willing to make the hypothesis that the communications are 
genuine? 

The first thing we learn, perhaps the only thing we clearly 
learn in the first instance, is continuity. There is no such 
sudden break in the conditions of existence as may have been 
anticipated; and no break at all in the continuous and con- 
scious identity of genuine character and personality. Essen- 



TENTATIVE CONCLUSION 343 

tial belongings, such as memory, culture, education, habits, 
character, and affection, — all these, and to a certain extent 
tastes and interests, — for better for worse are retained. 
Terrestrial accretions, such as worldly possessions, bodily 
pain and disabilities, these for the most part naturally drop 
away. 

Meanwhile it would appear that knowledge is not suddenly 
advanced — it would be unnatural if it were,— we are not 
suddenly flooded with new information, — nor do we at all 
change our identity; but powers and faculties are enlarged, 
and the scope of our outlook on the universe may be widened 
and deepened, if effort here has rendered the acquisition of 
such extra insight legitimate and possible. 

On the other hand, there are doubtless some whom the 
removal of temporary accretion and accidents of existence 
will leave in a feeble and impoverished condition; for the 
things are gone in which they trusted, and they are left poor 
indeed. Such doctrines have been taught, on the strength 
of vision and revelation, quite short of any recognised Divine 
revelation, for more than a century. The visions of Sweden- 
borg, divested of their exuberant trappings, are not wholly 
unreal, and are by no means wholly untrue. There is a gen- 
eral consistency in the doctrines that have thus been taught 
through various sensitives, and all I do is to add my testi- 
mony to the rational character of the general survey of the 
universe indicated by Myers in his great and eloquent work. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

IN MEMORY OF MYERS 

IT behoves me who have learnt so much from the Pio- 
neers and Founders of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search not to conclude this book, — which attempts to 
set forth in some detail an outline of the less orthodox facts 
by which among other things I have been led to my views con- 
cerning the universe,— without emphasising the debt I owe 
to those who have immediately preceded me in this study; 
and I can discharge the debt most compactly by quoting here 
the Address which I gave to the Society for Psychical Re- 
search shortly after the death of its President of 1900 — on 
the occasion when it fell to my lot to succeed him in the Chair. 

In Memory of F. W. H. Myers 

'Apvvfievos rjv re xj/vx^v kolI vocttov kralpoiv 

Who would have thought a year ago, when our Secretary 
and joint Founder at length consented to be elected Presi- 
dent, that we should so soon be lamenting his decease? 

When Henry Sidgwick died, the Society was orphaned; 
and now it is left desolate. Of the original chief founders, 
Professor Barrett alone remains ; for Mr. Podmore, the only 
other member of the first Council still remaining on it, was 
not one of the actual founders of the Society. Neither the 
wisdom of Sidgwick nor the energy and power of Myers can 
by any means be replaced. Our loss is certain, but the blow 
must not be paralysing. Rather it must stimulate those 

344 



IN MEMORY OF MYERS 345 

that remain to fresh exertions, must band us together, deter- 
mined that a group of workers called together for a pioneer- 
ing work, for the founding and handing on to posterity of 
a new science, must not be permitted to disband and scatter 
till their work is done. That work will not be done in our 
lifetime ; it must continue with what energy and wisdom we 
can muster, and we must be faithful to the noble leaders who 
summoned us together, and laid this burden to our charge. 

I, unworthy, am called to this Chair. I would for every 
reason that it could have been postponed; but it is the wish 
of your Council; I am told that it was the wish of Myers, 
and I regard it as a duty from which I must not shrink. 

The last communication which my predecessor made was 
in memory of Henry Sidgwick: my own first communication 
must be in memory of Frederic Myers. 

To how many was he really known ? I wonder. Known 
in a sense he was to all, except the unlettered and the igno- 
rant. Known in reality he was to very few. But to the 
few who were privileged to know him, his is a precious 
memory: a memory which will not decay with the passing 
of the years. I was honoured with his intimate friendship. 
I esteem it one of the privileges of my life. 

To me, though not to me alone, falls the duty of doing 
some justice to his memory. I would that I might be in- 
spired for the task. 

I was not one of those who knew him as a youth, and 
my acquaintance with him ripened gradually. Our paths in 
life were wide apart, and our powers were different: our 
powers, but not out tastes. He could instruct me in litera- 
ture and most other things, I could instruct him in science; 
he was the greedier learner of the two. I never knew a 
man more receptive, nor one with whom it was a greater 
pleasure to talk. His grasp of science was profound: I 



346 IN MEMORY OF MYERS 

do not hesitate to say it, though many who did not really 
know him will fail to realise that this was possible; nor 
was he fully conscious of it himself. Even into some of 
the more technical details, when they were properly pre- 
sented, he could and did enter, and his mind was in so 
prepared a state that any fact once sown in it began promptly 
to take root and bud. It was not a detailed knowledge of 
science that he possessed, of course, but it was a grasp, a 
philosophic grasp, of the meaning and bearing of it all, — 
not unlike the accurately comprehending grasp of Tennyson. 
And again and again in his writings do we find the facts, 
which his mind had thus from many sources absorbed, utilised 
for the purpose of telling and brilliant illustrations, and made 
to contribute each its quota to his Cosmic scheme. 

For that is what he was really doing, all through this 
last quarter of a century: he was laying the foundation for 
a cosmic philosophy, a scheme of existence as large and com- 
prehensive and well founded as any that have appeared. 

Do I mean that he achieved such a structure? I do not. 
A philosophy of that kind is not to be constructed by the 
labour of one man, however brilliant; and Myers laboured 
almost solely on the psychological side. He would be the 
first to deprecate any exaggeration of what he has done; 
but he himself would have admitted this, — that he strenu- 
ously and conscientiously sought facts, and endeavoured to 
construct his cosmic foundation by their aid and in their 
light, and not in the dark gropings of his own unaided in- 
telligence. 

To me it has seemed that most philosophers suffer from 
a dearth of facts. In the past necessarily so, for the scientific 
exploration of the physical universe is, as it were, a thing 
of yesterday. Our cosmic outlook is very different from 
that of the ancients, is different even from that of philoso- 



IN MEMORY OF MYERS 347 

phers of the middle of the century, before the spectroscope 
was invented, before Darwin and Wallace wrote, before 
many discoveries connected with less familiar household 
words than these: in the matter of physical science alone 
the most recent philosopher must needs have some advan- 
tage. But this is a small item in his total outfit, mental 
phenomena must contribute the larger part of that; and the 
facts of the mind have been open — it is generally assumed 
— from all antiquity. This is in great degree true, and 
philosophers have always recognised and made use of these 
facts, especially those of the mind in its normal state. Yet 
in modern science we realise that to understand a thing thor- 
oughly it must be observed not only in its normal state but 
under all the conditions into which it can be thrown by 
experiment, — every variation being studied and laid under 
contribution to the general understanding of the whole. 

And, I ask, did any philosopher ever know the facts of 
the mind in health and in disease more profoundly, with 
more detailed and intimate knowledge, drawn from personal 
inquiry, and from the testimony of all the savants of Eu- 
rope, than did Frederic Myers? He laid under contribu- 
tion every abnormal condition studied in the Salpetriere, in 
hypnotic trance, in delirium, every state of the mind in 
placidity and in excitement. He was well acquainted with 
the curious facts of multiple personality, of clairvoyant vision, 
of hallucinations, automatisms, self-suggestion, of dreams, 
and of the waking visions of genius. 

It will be said that Hegel, and to some extent Kant also, 
as well as other philosophers, recognised some ultra-normal 
mental manifestations, and allowed a place for clairvoyance 
in their scheme. All honour to those great men for doing 
so, in advance of the science of their time; but how could 
they know all that we know to-day? Fifty years ago the 



348 IN MEMORY OF MYERS 

facts even of hypnotism were not by orthodox science ac- 
cepted; such studies as were made, were made almost surrep- 
titiously, here and there, by some truth-seeker clear-sighted 
enough to outstep the fashion of his time and to look at 
things with his own eyes. But only with difficulty could he 
publish his observations, and doubtless many were lost for 
fear of ridicule and the contempt of his professional brethren. 

But now it is different : not so different as it ought to be, 
even yet; but facts previously considered occult are now in- 
vestigated and recorded and published in every country of 
Europe. The men who observe them are too busy to unify 
them; they each contribute their portion, but they do not 
grasp the whole : the grasping of the whole is the function of 
a philosopher. I assert that Myers was that philosopher. 

Do I then in my own mind place him on a pedestal by 
the side of Plato and Kant? God forbid! I am not one 
to juggle with great names and apportion merit to the sages 
of mankind. Myers's may not be a name which will sound 
down the ages as an achiever and builder of a system of 
truth ; but I do claim for him that as an earnest pioneer and 
industrious worker and clear-visioned student, he has laid a 
foundation, perhaps not even a foundation but a corner- 
stone, on ground more solid than has ever been available 
before; and I hold that the great quantity of knowledge 
now open to any industrious truth-seeker gives a man of 
modest merit and of self-distrustful powers, a lever, a ful- 
crum, more substantial than those by which the great men 
of antiquity and of the middle ages were constrained to ac- 
complish their mighty deeds. 

Myers left behind two unpublished volumes on Human 
Personality, — left them, alas, not finished, not finally fin- 
ished; how nearly finished I do not know. I read fractions 



IN MEMORY OF MYERS 349 

of them as they left his pen, and to me they seemed likely 
to be an epoch-making work. 

They are doubtless finished enough: more might have 
been done, they might have been better ordered, more highly 
polished, more neatly dove-tailed, had he lived; but they 
represent for all time his real life work, that for which he 
was willing to live labourious days; they represent what he 
genuinely conceived to be a message of moment to humanity : 
they are his legacy to posterity ; and in the light of the facts 
contained in them he was willing and even eager to die. 

The termination of his life, which took place at Rome 
in presence of his family, was physically painful owing to 
severe attacks of difficult breathing which constantly pre- 
ceded sleep; but his bearing under it all was so patient and 
elevated as to extort admiration from the excellent Italian 
doctor who attended him. And in a private letter by an eye- 
witness his departure was described as " a spectacle for the 
Gods; it was most edifying to see how a genuine conviction 
of immortality can make a man indifferent to what to or- 
dinary people is so horrible." 

In the intervals of painful breathing he quoted from one 
of his own poems ( u The Renewal of Youth," — which he 
preferred to earlier and better-known poems of his, and 
from which alone I quote) : 

" Ah, welcome then that hour which bids thee lie 
In anguish of thy last infirmity! 
Welcome the toss for ease, the gasp for air, 
The visage drawn, and Hippocratic stare; 
Welcome the darkening dream, the lost control, 
The sleep, the swoon, the arousal of the soul ! " 

Death he did not dread. That is true; and his clear and 



350 IN MEMORY OF MYERS 

happy faith was the outcome entirely of his scientific re- 
searches. The years of struggle and effort and systematic 
thought had begotten in him a confidence as absolute and su- 
preme as is to be found in the holiest martyr or saint. By 
this I mean that it was not possible for any one to have a 
more absolute and childlike confidence that death was a mere 
physical event. To him it was an adversity which must 
happen to the body, but it was not one of those evil things 
which may assault and hurt the soul. 

An important and momentous event truly, even as birth 
is; a temporary lapse of consciousness, even as trance may 
be ; a waking up to strange and new surroundings, like a more 
thorough emigration than any that can be undertaken on a 
planet; but a destruction or lessening of power, no whit. 
Rather an enhancement of existence, an awakening from this 
earthly dream, a casting off of the trammels of the flesh, 
and putting on of a body more adapted to the needs of an 
emancipated spirit, a wider field of service, a gradual oppor- 
tunity of re-uniting with the many who have gone before. 
So he believed, on what he thought a sure foundation of ex- 
perience, and in the strength of that belief he looked forward 
hopefully to perennial effort and unending progress: 

" Say, could aught else content thee? which were best, 
After so brief a battle an endless rest, 
Or the ancient conflict rather to renew, 
By the old deeds strengthened mightier deeds to do? " 

Such was his faith: by this he lived, and in this he died. 
Religious men in all ages have had some such faith, perhaps 
a more restful and less strenuous faith ; but to Myers the 
faith did not come by religion: he would have described 
himself as one who walked by sight and knowledge rather 



IN MEMORY OF MYERS 351 

than by faith, and his eager life-long struggle for knowledge 
was in order that he might by no chance be mistaken. 

To some, conviction of this kind would be impossible — 
they are the many who know not what science is. To others, 
conviction of this kind seems unnecessary — they are the 
favoured ones who feel that they have grasped all needed 
truth by revelation or by intuition. But by a few here and 
there, even now, this avenue to knowledge concerning the 
unseen is felt to be open. Myers believed that hereafter 
it would become open to all. He knew that the multitude 
could appreciate science no more, perhaps less, than they can 
appreciate religion; but he knew further that when presently 
any truth becomes universally accepted by scientific men, it 
will penetrate downwards and be accepted by ordinary per- 
sons, as they now accept any other established doctrine, — 
such as the planetary position of the earth in the solar system, 
or the evolution of species, — not because they have really 
made a study of the matter, but because it is a part of the 
atmosphere into which they were born. 

If continuity of existence and intelligence across the gulf 
of death really can ever be thus proved, it surely is a de- 
sirable and worthy object for science to aim at. There be 
some religious men of little faith who resent this attempted 
intrusion of scientific proof into their arena; as if they had 
a limited field which could be encroached upon. Those men 
do not realise, as Myers did, the wealth of their inheritance. 
They little know the magnitude of the possibilities of the 
universe, the unimagined scope of the regions still, and per- 
haps for ever, beyond the grasp of what we now call science. 

There was a little science in my youth which prided itself 
upon being positive knowledge, and sought to pour scorn up- 
on the possibility, say, of prayer or of any mode of communi- 



352 IN MEMORY OF MYERS 

cation between this world and a purely hypothetical other. 
Honest and true and brilliant though narrow men held these 
beliefs and promulgated these doctrines for a time: they did 
good service in their day by clearing away some superstition, 
and, with their healthy breezy common-sense, freeing the 
mind from cant, — that is, from the conventional utterance 
of phrases embodying beliefs only half held. I say no word 
against the scientific men of that day, to whom were opposed 
theologians of equal narrowness and of a more bitter temper. 
But their warlike energy, though it made them effective 
crusaders, left their philosophy defective and their science 
unbalanced. It has not fully re-attained equilibrium yet. 
With Myers the word Science meant something much larger, 
much more comprehensive: it meant a science and a philo- 
sophy and a religion combined. It meant, as it meant to 
Newton, an attempt at a true cosmic scheme. His was no 
purblind outlook on a material universe limited and condi- 
tioned by our poor senses. He had an imagination wider 
than that of most men. Myers spoke to me once of the 
possibility that the parts of an atom move perhaps inside 
the atom in astronomical orbits, as the planets move in the 
solar system, each spaced out far away from others and 
not colliding, but altogether constituting the single group or 
system we call the atom, — a microcosm akin to the visible 
cosmos; which again might be only an atom of some larger 
whole. I was disposed at that time to demur. I should 
not demur now; the progress of science within the last few 
years of the nineteenth century makes the first part of this 
thesis extremely probable. On the latter part too there is 
more to be said than is generally known. Physics and 
astronomy are rapidly advancing in this direction. 

Nor was it only upon material things that he looked with 
the eye of prescience and of hope. I never knew a man so 



IN MEMORY OF MYERS 353 

hopeful concerning his ultimate destiny. He once asked 
me whether I would barter — if it were possible — my un- 
known destiny, whatever it might be, for as many aeons of 
unmitigated and wise terrestrial happiness as might last till 
the secular fading of the sun, and then an end. 

He would not ! No limit could satisfy him. That which 
he was now he only barely knew, — for to him not the whole 
of each personality is incarnate in this mortal flesh, the sub- 
liminal self still keeps watch and ward beyond the threshold, 
and is in touch always with another life, — but that which 
he might come to be hereafter he could by no means 
guess: ovtto) i<l>avepu)6r) ri iao^Oa. Gradually and perhaps 
through much suffering, from which indeed he sensitively 
shrank, but through which nevertheless he was ready to go, 
he believed that a being would be evolved out of him, — 
" even," as he would say, " out of him" — as much higher 
in scale of creation as he now was above the meanest thing 
that crawls. 

Nor yet an end. Infinity of infinities — he could conceive 
no end, of space or time or existence, nor yet of development : 
though an end of the solar system and therefore of mankind 
seemed to him comparatively imminent — 

" That hour may come when Earth no more can keep 
Tireless her year-long voyage thro' the deep; 
Nay, when all planets, sucked and swept in one, 
Feed their rekindled solitary sun; — 
Nay, when all suns that shine, together hurled, 
Crash in one infinite and lifeless world: — 
Yet hold thou still, what worlds soe'er may roll, 
Naught bear they with them master of the soul; 
In all the eternal whirl, the cosmic stir, 
All the eternal is akin to her; 
She shall endure, and quicken, and live at last, 
When all save souls has perished in the past." 



354 IN MEMORY OF MYERS 

Infinite progress, infinite harmony, infinite love, — these 
were the things which filled and dominated his existence. 
Limits for him were repellant and impossible. Limits con- 
ditioned by the flesh and by imperfection, — by rebellion, 
blindness, and error, — these are obvious, these he admitted 
and lamented to the full ; but ultimate limits, impassable bar- 
riers, cessation of development, a highest in the scale of be- 
ing beyond which it was impossible to go, — these he would 
not admit, these seemed to him to contradict all that he had 
gleaned of the essence and meaning of existence. 

Principalities and Powers on and on, up and up, without 
limit now and for ever, — this was the dominant note of 
his mind; and if he seldom used the word God except in 
poetry, or employed the customary phrases, it was because 
everything was so supremely real to him; and " God," the 
personified totality of existence, too blinding a conception 
to conceive. 

For practical purposes something less lofty served, and he 
could return from cosmic speculations to the simple every- 
day life, which is for all of us the immediate business in 
hand, and which, if patiently pursued, seemed to him to lead 
to more than could be desired or deserved — 

" Live thou and love ! so best and only so 
Can thy one soul into the One Soul flow,— 
Can thy srnall life to Life's great centre flee, 
And thou be nothing, and the Lord in thee." 

This is an expression of himself: it was not so much his 
creed as himself. He with his whole being and personality 
— at first slowly and painfully, with many rebuffs and after 
much delay and hesitation, but in the end richly and en- 
thusiastically — rose to this height of emotion, of conviction, 
and of serenity; though perhaps to few he showed it. 



IN MEMORY OF MYERS 355 

" Either we cannot or we hardly dare 
Breathe forth that vision into earthly air; 
And if ye call us dreamers, dreamers then 
Be we esteemed amid you waking men; 
Hear us or hear not as ye choose; but we 
Speak as we can, and are what we must be." 

Not that he believed easily: let no man think that his 
faith came easily and cost him nothing. He has himself 
borne witness to the struggle, the groanings that could not 
be uttered. His was a keenly emotional nature. What he 
felt, he felt strongly ; what he believed, he believed in no half- 
hearted or conventional manner. When he doubted, he 
doubted fiercely; but the pain of the doubt only stimulated 
him to effort, to struggle; to know at least the worst, and 
doubt no longer. He was content with no half knowledge, 
no clouded faith, he must know or he must suffer, and in the 
end he believed that he knew. 

Seeker after Truth and Helper of his comrades 

is a line in his own metre, though not a quotation, which 
runs in my mind as descriptive of him; suggested doubtless 
by that line from the Odyssey which, almost in a manner at 
his own request, I have placed in the fore-front of this essay. 
For he speaks of himself in an infrequent autobiographical 
sentence as having " often a sense of great solitude, and of 
an effort beyond my strength; * striving,' — as Homer says of 
Oydsseus in a line which I should wish graven on some 
tablet in my memory, — ' striving to save my own soul and 
my comrades' homeward way.' " 

But the years of struggle and effort brought in the end 
ample recompense, for they gave him a magnificent power 
to alleviate distress. He was able to communicate some- 
thing of his assurance to others, so that more than one be- 
reaved friend learned to say with him — 



356 IN MEMORY OF MYERS 

" What matter if thou hold thy loved ones prest 
Still with close arms upon thy yearning breast, 
Or with purged eyes behold them hand in hand 
Come in a vision from that lovely land, — 
Or only with great heart and spirit sure 
Deserve them and await them and endure; 
Knowing well, no shocks that fall, no years that flee, 
Can sunder God from these, or God from thee; 
Nowise so far thy love from theirs can roam 
As past the mansions of His endless home." 

To how many a sorrowful heart his words have brought 
hope and comfort, letters, if ever published, will one day 
prove. The deep personal conviction behind his message 
drove it home with greater force, nor did it lose influence 
because it was enfranchised from orthodox traditions, and 
rang with no hollow professional note. 

There are those who lament that with his undoubted 
powers as a man of letters he to some extent deserted the 
sunny fields of pure literature for the rugged tracts of scien- 
tific inquiry; but indeed the two were closely blended. It is, 
as Dr. Walter Leaf has said, impossible to appreciate Myers 
without insisting on this interfusion: — 

The essay on his best-beloved Virgil is perhaps that of all 
his utterances which gives us most of his literary self. And 
the very heart of Virgil was to him in the famous speech of 
Anchises to iEneas in Elysium (JEn., vi. 724-755), where 
the poet " who meant, as we know, to devote to philosophy 
the rest of his life after the completion of the 'iEneid ' " pro- 
pounds " an answer to the riddle of the universe in the unex- 
pectedly definite form." 

This ultimate subordination of form to substance, of art to 
thought, is the whole story of Myers's literary work. His 
art gained all the more because it was not pursued as a pri- 



IN MEMORY OF MYERS 357 

mary aim, and the obvious rewards of it were little sought. 
Those only who followed the working of his aspirations will 
adequately recognise his mastery, and see how for him style 
was but the expression of his inmost soul. In his wonderful 
fragments of Virgilian translation he reached his height. 
The poet who was ever his truest ideal is transfused till the 
Roman and the Englishman blend in one passion, human and 
divine, and the triumphant song is taken up and proclaimed 
again after two thousand years — 

" To God again the enfranchised soul must tend, 
He is her home, her Author is her end; 
No death is hers; when earthly eyes grow dim 
Starlike she soars and Godlike melts in Him." 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Abt Volger 319 

Accessories in visions 102 

Action at a distance 33 

Agent and percipient 45 

Aim of S. P. R 36 

Albemarle Club 291 

Anticipation of future 155-158 

Apparitions 99, 101-107 

Apparitions, experimental 91, 105 

Archbishop or savant 308 

Automatic intelligence no, 130 

Bacon, Francis 14, 17 

Bacon, Roger 14, 15 

Barrett, Professor 12, 39, 344 

Battersea, Lord 292 

Beethoven 94 

Birchall, Mr 46 

" Blanche Abercromby" case 184 

Body and mind 172 

Brown study in 

"Charley and Bird" case 233 

Clairvoyance .... 125, 155, 169,227,233,238 

Clairvoyance of the dying 147, 151 

Clothes of ghosts 99, 102 

Columbus 27 

Communication, process of . .115,174,248, 

5°9 
Communicators, statements of ... . 247, 267 

Comte and Socrates 23 

Confusion 284 

Contract, effects of 68 

Continuity 342 

Criminals 29 

Cross-correspondence .... 189,268,311,331 
Crystal Vision 93? 94 



Death 



349 



"Descent into HelP 1 308 

Detectives 193 

Difficulties of communication .... 253,256, 

280,310,313 

Diotima 333 



Doctor 1 



Dorr, Mr 282,316 

Double object for thought-transference 

41, 48, 51 

Dream lucidity 103, 137, 145 

Dying, clairvoyance of 146, 151 

Dying, phantasms of 103 

Ether of space 81, 82 

Evidence 342 

Experimental apparitions 91, 105 

"Fishing" 314,320 

Forbes, Mrs 304, 333 

Foreign languages 151 

Forth bridge 12 

Future, anticipation of 155-158 

Future service 308 

Garibaldi's dream 79 

Ghosts 108 

Ghosts, clothes of 99, 102 

Goner, Professor 215, 233 

Grove, Mrs 321, 326 

Gurney, Edmund 251 

Guthrie, Malcolm 40, 49, 75 

Habitability 117 

Hades 308 

Hallucination 100, 102, 104, 108 

Hand, activity of 248,251,276,318 

Hauntings 94, 108 

Heliography 83, 93 

Herdman, Dr 4 1 * 35 

" Hodgson control " 316 

Hodgson, Dr 192, 248 

Holland, Mrs 112,301,336,339 

Hyslop, Prof 2&, -45 

Identity 175,179,188,241,244,342 

Image IO ° 

"Imperator" 315 

Infinity 353 

Influence of sitter 3-3 



359 



360 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Inspiration Ill, 327 

Inspiration, vicarious 328 

Investigation, object of 25 

Isaac Thompson 223 

Isaac Thompson case 269-280 

James, Professor William 192,198,292,293 

Johnson, Miss 331 

"Joy of the Lord" 309 

Kant 120 

Kenosis 282 

Kepler, Newton, and Tycho 27 

Kipling 180 

Kirkham case 183 

Leaf, Dr. Walter 356 

Lessons to be learnt 342 

Letters, posthumous 122 

Lodge, Frederick, case 75 

Lunatics 29 

Lyso Commit Von 59, 70 

Man who was, The 180 

Marble, Mr 321, 323 

Materialisation 178 

Marmontel case 159 

Marsh, Mr 161, 162 

Mathematical problem 132 

Miles, Miss 70, 1 17 

Mind and body 172 

Movement 173 

Myers, Mr. Ernest 293 

Myers'. 17 

Myers on time 163 

"Myers" control 288-312 

Navies 341 

"Nelly" control 289,310 

Newton, Tycho, and Kepler 27 

Nineteenth century 27 

Novum Organum 17 

"Old Master" 95 

Opposition to S. P. R 6 

Pain and taste experiments 75 

Paquet case 104 

Pelham, George 251 

Percipient, agent and 45 

Phantasms 102, 103, 106 

Phantasms of the living 89, 102 



Phinuit 113, 208, 261, 266, 314, 325 



Phinuit case 



5° 



Photographs, recognition of 317 

Photography , IO o 

Physical phenomena 101, 178 

Piddington, Mr 268,330-336 

Piper, Mrs. 112, 190, 197, 260, 264, 276, 339 

Piper, normal knowledge of Mrs 281 

Planchette 130 

Podmore, Mr 120 

Pole, Miss 130 

"Possession" 176 

Posthumous letters 122 

Postmarks 156, 157 

Prayer 327 

Precautions 32 

Preparations for sitting 260 

Press, American 195 

Prisoners 29 

Proiessional exhibitions 85 

Programme of S. P. R 8 

Ramaden, Miss 70, 1 17 

Rawson, Miss 303 

Rayleigh, Lord 293 

Reading, unseen 135, 222, 226, 238 

Recognition of photographs 317 

Records, exactness of 31 

"Rector" 113,208,261, 266,3x4,325 

Redmayne, Professor (case) Jj 

Reflex action 174 

Relics 95, 230, 285, 287 

Religion, influence on 35 

Religious objectors 6, 307 

Rendall, Dr 215 

Rich, Mr 224 

Richet, Professor 192, 293, 301 

Robbins, Miss 257 

Royal Society 11 

Ruskin, Mr , 76 

Savant, Archbishop or 308 

Science, dislike of 16 

Scylla and Charybdis 18 

Semaphore 93 

Service, future 308 

Severn case 76 

Sharpe, Mr 134 

Shears, Dr 46 

Sidgwick, Prof. Henry 4,164,248,311,345 

Sidgwick, Mrs 318, 337 

Sitter, influence of 323 



INDEX 



361 



PAGE 

Sitting, preparations for 260 

"Snap" in head 279,280 

Socrates and Comte 23 

Spiristic Hypothesis ..164,179,257,337,351 

"Spirits in Prison 1 ' 308 

Spiritual Influence 327 

S. P. R., aim of 36 

S. P. R., opposition to 6 

S. P. R., programme of 8 

Stainton, Moses 119,135,182,315 

Stranger, identity of 242 

Superstitions, ancient 80, 96 

Swedenborg 181,343 

Swedenborg case 120 

Sympathetic connection 81 

Taste and pain experiments 79 

Telegraphy and telepathy 90, 93, 128 

Telephones 82, 243 

Telergy 171, 176, 177 

Tennyson 292, 300, 346 

Tests 243, 284 

Thompson, Mr. Edwin 270 

Thompson, Isaac 223 

Thompson, Mrs 295, 306, 332 



PAGE 

Thought-transference, double object for 

32, 41, 48 

Time, Myerson 163 

Trance 328 

Trevelyan, G. M 79 

Trevelyan, Sir George 291 

Trifles 244,345 

Trifles and relics 286, 288 

Tunnel 341 

Tycho, Kepler, and Newton 27 

"Uncle Jerry" case 228 

Unseen reading 135, 222, 226, 238 

Veridical 100, 103 

Verrall, Mrs. .. 112,128,159,163,305,311, 

339.340 

Vicarious inspiration 328 

Virgil 356 

Visions 100, 104, 107, 153 

Waking stage 266, 278 

Watson, Rev. John 23 1 

Zancigs 88 



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